Peter and Laura will present their DFG-funded project, which started in 2024 and is associated with the Collaborative Research Centre ›Production of Migration‹ ( SFB 1604). The project was developed in the context of the interdisciplinary collaboration with legal scholars at Münster University in close connection with a co-project conducted by Nora Markard (International Law and Human Rights Protection). The collaborative project addresses the current legal and literary constitution of the subject of human rights and is situated at the interface of current Anglo-postcolonial and transnational American studies on the relationship between law and literature, and literary fiction and human rights. The focus is on the productive ambivalence of subjects between self-determination and heteronomy, between individual agency, abstract legal formalisation and cultural representation.

Peter Schneck is Professor for American Studies at Osnabrück University, he is IMIS and SFB 1604 member. His research focuses on the history of US culture and literature, with particular attention on the 19th century to the present, law and literature, questions of property and ownership in US culture, human rights and migration, as well as general questions of cognition, poetics and aesthetics in literature.

Laura Zander is Postdoctoral Research Fellow and PI at the Institute of English and American Studies (UOS) and SFB 1604 member. Laura holds an M.A. in English Literature and Linguistics and both state examinations in Law after completing her postgraduate judicial service traineeship. She received her PhD from the Faculty of Linguistics and Literary Studies at the University of Munich (LMU) and her research interests include law and literature, gender and postcolonial studies, and both African and Caribbean literatures.