Literary trials: exceptio artis and theories of literature in court

241 Pages·2015·1.69 MB·English

Literary Trials

Literary Trials
Exceptio Artis and Theories
of Literature in Court
Edited by
Ralf Grüttemeier
Bloomsbury Academic
An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Inc
NEW YORK • LONDON • OXFORD • NEW DELHI • SYDNEY
Bloomsbury Academic
An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Inc
1385 Broadway 50 Bedford Square
New York London
NY 10018 WC1B 3DP
USA UK
www.bloomsbury.com
BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
First published 2016
© Ralf Grüttemeier and Contributors, 2016
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or
retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers.
No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or
refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be
accepted by Bloomsbury or the author.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Literary trials: exceptio artis and theories of literature in court/
edited by Ralf Grüttemeier.
pages cm
Papers from a conference held 21–22 March 2014 in Oldenburg in
North-Western Germany. – ECIP Acknowledgments.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-5013-0317-3 (hardback)
1. Freedom of expression–Congresses. 2. Press law–Congresses.
3. Law and literature–Congresses. 4. Obscenity (Law)–Congresses.
5. Libel and slander–Congresses. I. Grüttemeier, Ralf, 1961- editor.
K3253.A6L58 2016
342.08’53–dc23
2015018670
ISBN: HB: 978-1-5013-0317-3
ePub: 978-1-5013-0318-0
ePDF: 978-1-5013-0319-7
Typeset by Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd.
Printed and bound in the United States of America
Contents
Notes on Contributors vii
Acknowledgements ix
Literary Trials as Mirrors. An Introduction
Ralf Grüttemeier 1
Part I T owards More Autonomy of Literature. Histories
of Literary Trials 19
1 The Legal Responsibility of the Writer Between Objectivity and
Subjectivity: The French Case (Nineteenth to Twenty-First Century)
Gisèle Sapiro 21
2 The Making of the 1959 Obscene Publications Act: Trials and
Debates on Literary Obscenity in Britain Before the Case of
Lady Chatterley
Anton Kirchhofer 49
3 Law and the Literary Field in South Africa, 1910–2010
Ted Laros 69
4 De Sade as a Benchmark. Dutch Legal Actions Against Obscenity
in Literature, Theatre and Film in the 1960s and 1970s
Klaus Beekman 89
5 Freedom of Satire? Oskar Panizza’s Play Das Liebeskonzil
in a Series of Trials in Germany and Austria
Claudia Lieb 107
6 ‘Words Are No Deeds’. Trials Against Literature in the Soviet Union
Sylvia Sasse 123
Part II C hange of Rules? The Challenges of Defamation and Religion 139
7 Literature Losing Legal Ground in Germany? The Case of Maxim
Biller’s Esra (2003–2009)
Ralf Grüttemeier 141
vi Contents
8 Defamation Trials in Belgium – The Case of Herman Brusselmans’s
Novel Uitgeverij Guggenheimer
Katharina Hupe 159
9 Libellous Literature: Elton John and the Perils of
Close Reading
Peter D. McDonald 175
10 ‘The Law Is a Ass’: Obscenity, Blasphemy and Other Literary
Offences after Lady Chatterley
Martin A. Kayman 191
Index 217
Notes on Contributors
Klaus Beekman is a guest-researcher at the University of Amsterdam (UvA,
Netherlands) where he was Associate Professor. In 2005 he published De wet
van de letter. Literatuur en rechtspraak together with Ralf Grüttemeier. He edited
Avant-Garde Critical Studies.
Ralf Grüttemeier is Professor of Dutch literature at the Carl von Ossietzky
University of Oldenburg (Germany). He was research Fellow of the Netherlands
Institute of Advanced Study (NIAS, Wassenaar) in 2008/9; was co-editor (2003–9)
and editor in chief (2009–12) of the journal Internationale Neerlandistiek; and is
co-editor of the journal Spiegel der Letteren since 2013.
Katharina Hupe studied Dutch and German Language and Literature at the
Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg (Germany) and is writing currently
her PhD in a project funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) about
trials caused by literary texts in Belgium.
Martin A. Kayman is Professor at the School of English, Communication and
Philosophy at Cardiff University (Wales), serving as Head of School from 2004
to 2014. He was the editor of the European English Messenger (1998–2003) and is
co-editor of the European Journal of English Studies (from 2004).
Anton Kirchhofer is Professor of English Literature at the Carl von Ossietzky
University of Oldenburg (Germany). He is, among others, co-author of Religion,
Secularity and Cultural Agency (2010) and co-editor of The Workings of the
Anglosphere. Contributions to the Study of British and US-American Cultures
(2009).
Ted Laros is Assistant Professor at the Open University at Heerlen (Netherlands).
He took his PhD at the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg (Germany)
in March 2014 with a thesis entitled ‘Long Walk to Artistic Freedom: Law and
the Literary Field in South Africa, 1910–2010’.
viii Notes on Contributors
Claudia Lieb is Assistant Professor at the University of Münster. She is co-editor
of Philologie als Literatur- und Rechtswissenschaft. Germanistik und Romanistik
1730–1870 (2013) and she recently finished her Habilitation-thesis ‘Germanistiken:
Zum Verhältnis von Literatur- und Rechtswissenschaft 1630-1900’ (2014).
Peter D. McDonald is Professor in English and Related Literature at the
University of Oxford. His major publication in the field of literature and law is
The Literature Police: Apartheid Censorship and Its Cultural Consequences (2009).
Gisèle Sapiro is Research Director at the CNRS (Centre de sociologie
européenne) at Paris (France). She is the author of La Guerre des écrivains, 1940–
1953 (1999; English translation forthcoming) and La Responsabilité de l’écrivain.
Littérature, droit et morale en France (19e-20e siècles) (2011).
Sylvia Sasse is Professor for Slavonic literary studies at the University of Zurich
(Switzerland). In 2013, she was co-organizer of the international conference
‘Kunsturteile & Urteilskünste. Literatur und Kunst vor Gericht’ in Zurich. Sasse
is co-author of (amongst others) Mystifikation, Autorschaft, Original (2001) and
Kunst als Strafe. Zur Ästhetik der Disziplinierung (2002).
Acknowledgements
First of all I would like to thank all contributors to this volume, not only for
their readiness to come together on 21–22 March 2014 in Oldenburg in North-
Western Germany but especially for their dedication and patience to embark
together on the enterprise which finally led to this volume. The meeting could
not have taken place without the generous financial support of the German
Research Foundation (DFG) for a project on literary trials in Belgium and South
Africa. Many thanks go out to the members of my DFG team: Ted Laros and
Katharina Hupe, assisted by Fabian Nattkämper and Janka Wagner, for all the
work and energy they put into this project, and of course to my home university,
the Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, which offered a most stimulating
surrounding for such an interdisciplinary enterprise.
In cultures without good publishers, projects dry up, one could rephrase
Foucault. I am therefore very grateful to Bloomsbury Publishers for their trust
in this project and all the persons involved in the publishing process. Especially
I would like to thank my editors, Haaris Naqvi and Mary Al-Sayed. Thanks go
out to the two anonymous reviewers for their very constructive reports which
greatly helped in shaping this volume and Dr. Katherine Bird for correcting the
English of the non-natives.
Oldenburg, March 2015
Ralf Grüttemeier