The History of Genres

Reaching for Reality in Law and Literature

Bibliographic Data

ID12176108
AuthorsAnat Rosenberg (0000-0002-6216-2748, Reichman University, corresponding author)
Year2014
Volume39
Issue04
Pages1057-1079
Publication date2014-01-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLaw & Social Inquiry (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0897-6546 • E-ISSN: 1747-4469
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1111/lsi.12096
OpenAlexW1567115150
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited27

Genres are historical formations; their ability to generate knowledge depends on their interrelationships within a culture. Since law, too, can be viewed as a genre, studies of specific historical relationalities between law and other genres are necessary for law's own history and theory. This essay discusses differentiations between Victorian law and literature, starting out from the recent publication of Ayelet Ben‐Yishai's Common Precedents: The Presentness of the Past in Victorian Law and Fiction (2013), which reveals some of that history. I examine two points: differentiations in legal and literary approaches to probabilistic knowledge, and differentiations in the author functions in law and literature. These differentiations bear multiple implications. I discuss implications for evidence‐law debates about probabilistic evidence, for contract‐law debates about the centrality of autonomy and self‐authorship, and for understandings of legal reasoning itself—the elusive notion of “thinking like a lawyer.”

Autonomy · Black letter law · Comparative law · Epistemology · Law and literature · Legal history · Legal profession · Legal realism · Political science · Private law · Sociology · Law · Philosophy · Socioeconomics of Resources and Conservation · Whitehead's Philosophy and Applications

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