Osnabrück Summer Institute on the Cultural Study of the Law

We are happy to announce Leila Neti as a member of the OSI 2024 faculty! Leila is the Irma and Jay Price Professor of English at Occidental College, Los Angeles. She specializes in Victorian literature, contemporary Anglophone literature, and law and literature. Leila will convene a workshop with Peter Schneck and Laura Zander on the topic of interdisciplinarity.

Her recent book Colonial Law in India and the Victorian Imagination (Cambridge UP, 2021) explores the shared cultural logic of both legal opinions and novels during the Victorian era.

Her published articles have appeared in differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies, Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, Law and Literature, and in various edited collections. Leila has been collaborating with the Universities of Osnabrück and Münster within the context of several research projects and workshops, including “Equity and Postcolonial Legal and Literary Imaginaries” and “Legal Universalism and Empire.”

We are very excited about Leila joining the OSI 2024 faculty, and we are very much looking forward to her workshop on interdisciplinarity!

After receiving excellent applications and due to many requests, we have been able to secure a few additional slots for the OSI 2024. We are thus happy to announce that the deadline for applications has been extended for a short time until April 15th!

Head over to our Application page for more info!

Since 2009, the OSI has successfully encouraged and promoted the interdisciplinary study and research of the interrelations between law and culture, based on the idea that the extended cultural study of the law will foster profitable scholarly exchange and dialogue between legal studies and the humanities. We are committed more than ever to build on and continue these efforts, especially in the face of the current challenges to democratic and open societies.

The Institute will offer a combination of thematic workshop sessions, small group seminars and a final conference for up to 20 international participants (doctoral, post-doctoral and advanced M.A. – see below for eligibility). The introductory workshop will address the range and potential of interdisciplinary studies and approaches in the field of law and the humanities. The remaining thematic sessions and small group seminars will focus on key issues and debates in current cultural legal studies which touch on questions of rights in general, legal personhood, citizenship etc

The main objective of the OSI is to encourage scholarly exchange across disciplines and the critical debate of current research projects as well as work in progress. Participants will have the opportunity to present and discuss their own work both within the larger group and in individual sessions with members of the OSI faculty. The program will be concluded with a two day conference on the topic of the institute with invited speakers and panel sessions.

We are pleased to officially announce the call for applications for the 9th International Osnabrück Summer Institute (OSI), Rights without Borders? Subjects, Precarity, Agency, that will take place July 06 to 14, 2024. Hosted by the Institute of English and American Studies (IfAA), the Summer Institute seeks to promote and examine the interdisciplinary study and research of law and culture.

Applicants should submit:

• An application form.
• A statement of purpose.
• A curriculum vitae.

Both PhD students and post-docs interested in taking part in the OSI should submit their applications by April 1st, 2024.

Information on eligibility, the application process and fees are available on our application page. Questions about the OSI may be directed at the Summer Institute Coordinators via email: lawandculture@uos.de.

We are so excited to announce that the concluding keynote of our conference will be held by Gesa Mackenthun!

Gesa is professor of American Studies at Rostock University, Germany. Her books include Embattled Excavations. Colonial and Transcultural Constructions of the American Deep Past (2021), Metaphors of Dispossession. American Beginnings and the Translation of Empire (1997), Fictions of the Black Atlantic (2004), and many edited volumes, among them Decolonizing ‘Prehistory’. Deep Time and Indigenous Knowledges in North America (with Christen Mucher, 2021), Sea Changes. Historicizing the Ocean (with Bernhard Klein, 2004), Entangled Knowledge. Scientific Discourses and Cultural Difference (with Klaus Hock, 2012), and DEcolonial Heritage: Natures, Cultures and the Asymmetries of Memory (with Aníbal Arregui, 2017). Her current research deals with representations of the transatlantic history of enclosures, evictions, and ecocide.

She will be holding a Keynote on the topic “Ghostly Gardeners: America’s Ambivalent Discourse on Indigenous Land Tenure.” Join us on the 24.07. at 10:30 am to listen to her exciting talk! Please note that there has been a change in venue! The talk will take place in room 11/212!