From Law and Literature to Legality and Affect
Greta Olson
Reviews and Awards
"remarkable" - Andrew Majeske, New American Studies Journal
"Greta Olson's remarkable book From Law and Literature to Legality and Affect reinvigorates the discipline of law and literature by re-envisioning it—indeed by transforming it altogether." - Andrew Majeske, New American Studies Journal
"In an elegant historical and incisive theoretical intervention, From Law and Literature to Legality and Affect traces the imaginative possibilities and critical potential of the jurisliterary. Olson not only provides a coruscating political accounting of the modern collision of law with literature, she also allows herself the freedom to imagine the radical potential of an expanded discipline and properly depicted art of law. This is a work that would classically be termed bene figuratus. Lavishly argued and elegantly illuminated, this book represents the coming of age of a crucial interdisciplinary conjunction in an aesthetics of legality." - Peter Goodrich, Professor of Law, Director of the Program in Law and Humanities, Cardozo Law School
"Spirited, provocative, and highly readable, from Law and Literature to Legality and Affect argues that if there is any place where human complexity shows itself most, it is in the realm of affect. The strength of this book lies in the multiple disciplinary lenses Greta Olson convincingly brings together to open up new vistas to address the all too often problematic encounters of legalities and affective understandings of law in contemporary democratic societies under the rule of law. A must read for those in Law and Humanities and beyond to help further a critical-humanistic project for legal research and augment the understandings it brings to legal practice." - Jeanne Gaakeer, professor of jurisprudence at Erasmus School of Law, Rotterdam, and senior justice in the Court of Appeal, The Hague