AIDEL (Italian Association of Law and Literature)
AIDEL (Associazione Italiana di Diritto e Letteratura) , whose head office is located in Turin, is an association founded with notary’s deed on June 17, 2008. The association is ruled by article 36 and following articles of the Italian Civil Code.
Law and literature have of late been matched and set against each other by a new-born field of interdisciplinary studies. The latter, typically Anglo-Saxon, developed within the principles of the Common Law. In the last twenty years, law and literature, analysed and investigated side by side, have gained in popularity on the international scene. They got under way at the Cardozo School of Law – New York and subsequently were taken up by the School of Law of Yale University, the School of Law of Birkbeck College (University of London). Distinguished scholars at the School of Law of Newcastle University showed great interest in these interdisciplinary studies.
In Italy, this field of comparative studies has only quite recently gathered momentum and it has to the extent that one could, for the future, envisage a new academic subject being added to the existing range on offer. National recognition comes from international conferences organized by the Dipartimento di Anglistica – Università di Verona; from the magazine Pólemos: diritto e cultura (Pólemos: law and culture), first published in 2007 by Carocci; from research work on the notion of equity, sponsored by MIUR (Ministero dell’Università e della Ricerca) and from the http://equity.lawliterature.eu and www.aidel.it websites.
Scientific research on “law and literature” ought to be based on integrating law (comparative law in particular), literary criticism and literature by means of legal ― both on the ontological and the hermeneutical plane, and literary methodology. On the one hand, then, legal methodology could assist scholars in analysing and understanding literary texts by implementing tools and strategies typical of the law. On the other hand, by contrast, literary methodology could offer jurists a novel key to the understanding of legal texts. Thus, both literary criticism and studies of comparative law would be approached in a wholly new perspective.
There is, then, a very strong need for a an association to be founded― and association which will foster scientific and cultural debate and promote all those initiatives which will confer ‘law and literature’ academic status and encourage its development and popularity.
THE ASSOCIATION SETS OUT TO:
a) promote and encourage Law and Literature studies in Italy
b) support and coordinate scientific research in this field
c) ensure the participation of Italian scholars in conferences, symposia, seminars and international initiatives in the field of Law and Literature
d) facilitate contacts between Italian and foreign researchers
e) Collaborate with major international institutions deputed to research in law and literature
f) proactively promote and increase publications in the field of Law and Literature.
Information for prospective members will soon be made available.