Intersections of Law and Culture 2011

A cross-disciplinary conference hosted by the Department of Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies, Franklin College Switzerland

September 23 - 25, 2011 in Lugano, Switzerland
Submission of abstracts accepted until March 31, 2011

Keynote Speakers

Sidonie Smith
Martha Guernsey Colby Collegiate Professor of Women's Studies and English, University of Michigan

Peter Rosenblum
Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein Clinical Professor of Human Rights Law at Columbia Law School

Intersections of Law and Culture aims to investigate law’s place in culture and culture’s place in law. This focus proceeds from the twin premise that law, itself a cultural form, reacts to and is shaped by the cultural context in which it operates and that culture in turn is shaped by the regulative forces of law. Moreover, the operations of law—its processes and decisions—have entered the realm of popular culture, media and the arts as plot devices and narratives used in sit-coms, films and pulp fiction. These in turn have begun to change the way law operates. Together law and culture help to determine the ways in which we inhabit both our local contexts and the global stage.

The focus of this second Intersections of Law and Culture conference is on human rights. What are the philosophical, literary and cultural points of references for the management of human rights? How have current notions and framings developed historically? What are the mechanisms by which cultural narratives and popular representations of human rights find their way into legal processes?  How does law in turn bleed into and influence cultural practices and conceptions of human rights? What is the relationship between international efforts and framings of human rights and their local implementations?

Clearly there are no simple, monolithic answers to these complex questions: a dialogue concerning the effects of the interplay between law and other forms of knowledge in the area of human rights can only proceed from a genuinely interdisciplinary point of departure. We welcome papers and panels from all cultural contexts and disciplinary perspectives, as well as from music and the arts. We envision the groupings of the papers not so much as distinct streams but as an interconnected matrix that acknowledges the overlap and mutual influence of modes of knowledge.

Organizers

Sara Steinert Borella
Dean of the College and Professor, Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies, Franklin College Switzerland

Caroline Wiedmer
Professor and Chair, Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies, Franklin College Switzerland

Advisory Board

Dave Cowan
Professor of Law and Policy, Faculty of Social Sciences and Law, Bristol University, Great Britain

Lieve Gies
Senior Lecturer, Department of Media and Communication, University of Leicester, Great Britain

Gianni D’Amato
Professor of Migration and Citizenship Studies, and Director of the Swiss Forum for Migration and Population Studies, University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland

Brigitte Schnegg
Professor of History and Director of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Gender Studies, University of Berne, Switzerland

For more information contact:

Caroline Wiedmer
cwiedmer@fc.edu