Artistic works, especially literature and cinema, are generous tools that invite us to contemplate the essence of justice and the individual's or society's pursuit of it. There can be many artistic works that strikingly address justice as a feeling or an idea, in connection with law or unrelated to it, on an ideal or practical level. Literature not only incorporates legal themes but also exerts influence on legal perspectives.

This workshop aims to explore how fictional universes in literature provide unique insights into the concept of justice, challenging and enriching our understanding of legal systems. Our approach will be grounded in key theories that connect literary narratives to justice as a legal concept. Based on this approach, the workshop will follow the ways in which literary works provide legal thinking opportunities. The core of our workshop will involve a detailed analysis of literary works that do not directly address legal issues but works that get us to consider them. In this way, we aim to discuss legal issues by looking at artistic creations which will give us fresh opportunities to expand our legal thinking beyond favorable judgements based on the law. The proposed workshop at the IVR 2024 Congress will examine various literary works to uncover how they mirror, critique, and inform legal principles and the pursuit of justice.

We want to focus on a range of genres, from classic literature to contemporary novels, to investigate how these narratives engage with themes of justice, law, and morality. The selection will aim to cover a diverse range of cultural and historical contexts. Therefore, the criteria for the selection of works will be free within the limits of the relationship established by the authors who want to present their papers at the workshop. The analysis will adopt a multidisciplinary approach, combining literary criticism with legal analysis. We will examine narrative structure, character development, and thematic elements to understand how these works portray legal processes and concepts of justice.

Moreover, we would like to discuss how fictional representations of justice influence our perception and understanding of real-world legal systems. We will discuss the impact of literature on shaping public opinion, legal education, and policy-making, illustrating the power of narrative in the legal realm. We aim to include a comparative analysis of how different authors and cultures represent legal themes. This comparison will highlight the diversity in understanding and portraying justice, offering a broader perspective on the universality and variability of legal concepts.

We propose a combination of individual presentations followed by a Q&A session and panel discussions, featuring scholars from different backgrounds and interests. The workshop aims to contribute significantly to the IVR 2024 Congress theme by demonstrating how literature offers profound insights into the rule of law, justice, and the functioning of democratic systems. It will offer a platform for interdisciplinary discussion, improving our comprehension of the relationship between literature and the law.