SLC New Colleagues Research Seminar Series

“The law is not a labour ward for justice”: Law, justice, and legal violence in the novels of Juli Zeh

Dr Kylie Giblett (Germanic Studies)

Friday, 4 November 3–5pm AEDT (Sydney time)

Abstract

German literature has a long tradition of Dichterjuristen – legally trained writers of literature whose works often deal with themes of law and justice. The contemporary author Juli Zeh has continued this tradition into the 21^st century. After studying law at Passau and Leipzig, Juli Zeh completed a doctorate in public international law at Saarbrücken and is currently engaged as an honorary judge of the constitutional court in the German state of Brandenburg. Her legal background has had a strong influence on her writing, with legal themes being a significant feature of both her fiction and non-fiction work.

In this talk, Kylie will examine how Juli Zeh explores critiques of the legal system and jurisprudential ideas about law and violence in her novels Spieltrieb and Corpus Delicti. In both novels, the legal system is challenged by protagonists who refuse to accept its legitimacy and by situations that undermine its authority. By facing the legal system with these extreme circumstances, Juli Zeh pushes the law to its limits. She uses these judicial crises to highlight the incongruity between law and justice, and to expose what both Walter Benjamin and Jacques Derrida have referred to as law’s foundational violence or force. Kylie will further explore how understanding Juli Zeh’s approach to these jurisprudential issues sheds light, not only on her fictional work, but also on her political advocacy on topics such as Germany’s regulation of its pandemic response.

About the speaker

Dr Kylie Giblett is an Academic Fellow in Germanic Studies at the School of Languages and Cultures (SLC). Kylie completed her PhD in German literature at the University of Sydney and recently published her first monograph, The version that wanted to be written: Writing the Nazi past as historiographic metafiction (2021, Erich Schmidt Verlag). Her primary research interests are the interface between contemporary German literature and recent German history, and law and legal philosophy in contemporary German literature, particularly in the work of Juli Zeh and Bernhard Schlink. Her interest in contemporary German Dichterjuristen has been sparked partly by her experiences in her earlier career as a commercial litigation lawyer.

SLC New Colleagues Research Seminar Series

This series of new colleagues’ lectures is presented by the SLC Research Committee to welcome newcomers in research positions. Presentations allow school colleagues and the wider community to get to know the research interests of recent arrivals.

Join online via Zoom

For more information, contact:
Dr Josh Stenberg (josh.stenberg@sydney.edu.au)
Dr Kylie Giblett (kylie.giblett@sydney.edu.au)

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