Literary History and Constitutional Culture

For the MLA’s next conference in Los Angeles, the Discussion Group on Law and Literature invites paper proposals (abstract plus cv to elliott.visconsi@yale.edu, by March 15) that address the relationship, broadly understood, between constitutional change and literary history. Some general questions: what influence do constitutional decisions have on the path of literary history, and to what degree can such decisions or events be said to transform or deflect a literary tradition? Papers that take a theoretical approach to the question are welcome (e.g. can the literary be understood as a modality of popular constitutional interpretation?), as are papers addressed to a concrete moment or event (e.g. LGBT literature after Lawrence v. Texas; LDS fiction in the wake of Reynolds v. United States, the literary history of slavery after Somersett’s case, Franco-Islamic literature after the 2004 headscarf laws, etc. Paper proposals from all legal and literary traditions are welcome.