LUCAS / Leiden University Centre for Arts, Literature
and Law (CALL)
Seminar Spring 2015
Law
and Liminal Landscapes: The Desert, The Sea, The Wilderness
After the 2013-2014 seminar on liminal figures, pirates,
privateers and robber barons, this seminar will study three liminal -and
perhaps even ‘lawless’- spaces: the desert, the sea and the wilderness. Each
session will revolve around a theoretical, a literary and a juridical text that
each broaches the question of the relation between law, lawlessness and space.
The series will begin with a general introduction to
the relation between law and landscape. Questions that we can discuss are,
amongst others: how does the law create spaces? Or how does it shape
landscapes? Can we think the world separate from the juridical? Can we, as
legal beings, relate to that world? What role do liminal spaces or landscapes
play in the coming into being of the law?
Readings include Blanchot, Deleuze, Kipling, Serres,
Grotius, as well as excerpts from the Old Testament and three legal cases.
Our sessions will be on/in:
17/2: Lipsius 147: Introduction
17/3: Lipsius 228: Desert
14/4: Lipsius 228: Sea
19/5: Lipsius 228: Wilderness
The seminar is convened by Frans-Willem Korsten, Yasco
Horsman and Tessa de Zeeuw (Film and Literary Studies, Leiden University) and
is open to all.
Please contact Frans-Willem Korsten (f.w.a.korsten@hum.leidenuniv.nl)
or Yasco Horsman (y.horsman@hum.leidenuniv.nl)
for further questions or to request the readings.
Session 1:
Introduction – Law and Landscape
Nicole
Graham, “Introduction,” in: Lawscape: Property, Environment, Law. London:
Routledge, 2011. 1-22.
Shaunnagh Dorsett, “Mapping Territories,” in: Jurisprudence of Jurisdiction, ed. Shaun
McVeigh. London & New York: Routledge, 2007. Pp 137-149.
Case:
Mabo v Queensland (nr. 2). <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mabo_v_Queensland_(No_2)>,
en <http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCA/1992/23.html>
Session 2: The
Desert
Nanette
Stahl, “Sinai: Law and Landscape,” in: Law
and Liminality in the Bible. Pp. 51-74;
Maurice
Blanchot, “Prophetic Speech,” in: The
Book to Come. Pp.79 -85.
Case:
The Ten Commandments, Bible,
“Exodus 19-24”;
[Extra:
Geoffrey Hartman, “The Poetics of Prophecy,” in: High Romantic Argument, ed.
Lawrence Lipking. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1981. 15-40.]
Session 3: The Sea
Grotius,
Mare Liberum [1609]; <http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/Grotius_Hugo_The_Freedom_of_the_Sea_(v1.0).pdf>
Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari, “1440. The Smooth
and the Striated,” in: A Thousand Plateaus.
Publisher [esp. “The Maritime Model”];
Session 4: The Wilderness
Kipling, “The Law for the Wolves”, in: The Second Jungle Book. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_jungle>;
Michel
Serres, “The Natural Contract”, in: The
Natural Contract. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995.
[Extra:
James Fenimore Cooper, The Pioneers
[1823]]
