Research Cluster C – Constitutivity

Project cluster C seeks to find out in how far literature can contribute to a formulation, creation or repeal of law and vice versa. The question is when and under which circumstances literature can rise beyond being a mere testimony to legal conditions and develop towards a justification or co-creator, so that literary texts consider themselves as complementary to the law. In analogy, the cluster of the CRC also focuses on law as constitutive of literature. When and how is it possible to consider law as constitutive of literature? When and how does law enable literature? When and how does law become prohibitive of literature, repealing its literariness or legitimation? When and how does maintain a sustenance of literature beyond mere recognition of the literary work? However, the project cluster does not solely focus on exemplary cases of any of these scenarios, but rather tries to identify which arguments or theorems, characteristics or structures can be considered as indispensable in order for both disciplines to ‘understand’ each other. The focus therefore lies on notions that are generally regarded as normatively constitutive of both disciplines in law-and-literature research.