From Charisma to Routinization and Beyond
This chapter argues that the charismatic period of law and literature scholarship and the days when some turned to literature as a template for legal thinking are long gone. It identifies three possible futures for law and literature. One would see the field emphasizing its distinctiveness and resisting incorporation into broader interdisciplinary explorations of law. The second would see the field embedded in broader analysis of the relationship of law and cultural production. The third involves pushing the boundaries of law and literary study beyond the humanities and culture. This law as performance perspective brings literary and cultural analysis together with social studies of the way law performs in a variety of domains. The chapter concludes that the brightest future for the field is one in which the distinctiveness of law and literature scholarship fades so that its contribution to broader understandings of law can be enhanced.