Narratives in the Criminal Process
An international conference organized by the research project «A Narratology of Criminal Cases»
Main content
The international conference «Narratives in the Criminal Process» will be held in Bergen on 30 November – 1 December 2018.
The theme of the conference is narratives in criminal law and the criminal process. The theme is inspired by Peter Brooks’ claim that «law needs a narratology» and the realization that narratives are still a theoretically underdeveloped aspect of legal processes.
Central questions are: What kinds of narratives are operative in the criminal process? What is the significance of narratives in the legal process? What kinds of narratives are most effective in the court room? How do narratives influence the decision making process of judges and jurors? What characterizes the court’s own narratives in judgements and judicial opinions? How do narratives shape press reports about criminal cases?
Key note speakers are Jeanne Gaakeer (Rotterdam) and Matías Martínez (Wuppertal).
The conference is open to the public.
Conference Program
Friday, 30 November | |
| 08:30 | Registration and Coffee |
| 09:00 | Words of Welcome |
| Key Note Lecture | |
| 09:15 | Judicial Narration as Explanation of Facts and Circumstances by Jeanne Gaakeer (Rotterdam) |
| 10:00 | Break |
| Parallel Session 1 | |
| 10:15 | The Story in the Judgment and the Standard of Proof by Bjørn O. Berg (Trondheim) |
| 10:35 | The Court’s Account of Events in the Norwegian Criminal Judgment by Erlend Liisberg (Bergen) |
| Parallel Session 2 | |
| 10:15 | The CSI Narrative and Its Possible Effect on the Criminal Process by Ivana Marković (Belgrade) |
| 10:35 | Sevlegutten’s Legacy: Between Court-Proceedings and Oral Tradition by Silje Warberg (Trondheim) |
| 11:15 | Break |
| Plenary Session | |
| 11:30 | Between Structure and Action: Using Narratives to Explain Legal Reason by Hans Petter Graver (Oslo) |
| 11:50 | Narratives in Court: The Different Perspectives of the Prosecutor, Defence Lawyer and the Judge by Tor Langbach (Trondheim) |
| 12:30 | Lunch |
| Parallel Session 3 | |
| 13:30 | Narrativity, Truth and History: Epistemic Reflections on the David Irving Libel Case by Vidar Halvorsen (Oslo) |
| 13:50 | Language Games in the Courtroom by Line Norman Hjorth (Bergen) |
| 14:10 | To Love or Not to Love. The Legal-discursive Afterlife of Narratives of Love in Belgian Marriage Fraud Investigations by Mieke Vandenbroucke (Ghent) |
| Parallel Session 4 | |
| 13:30 | ‘Two Suspicious Persons’ and the Rise of the Norwegian Press Complaints Commission by Per Jørgen Ystehede (Oslo) |
| 13:50 | Stories of Crime and Criminal Justice: News Values and Narrative Opportunities by Tara Søderholm (Oslo) |
| 14:10 | How to Tell the Story of a Trial and Why – The Narrative Structure of Journalistic Court Reporting by Corina Löwe & Beate Schirrmacher (Växjö) |
| 15:00 | Break |
| Plenary Session | |
| 15:15 | Stories, Law and Justice: The Place of Narratives in the Field of Law and Humanities by Arild Linneberg (Bergen) |
| 15:35 | Anchored Narratives 25 Years Later by P.J. van Koppen (Maastricht/Amsterdam) |
| 16:16 | Open Forum and Wrap Up |
| Evening Program | |
| 17:30 | Pizza at Bien Centro |
| 19:00 | Debate at Litteraturhuset: «». Panel: Matías Martínez, Greta Olson, P.J. van Koppen |
Saturday, 1 December | |
| 08:45 | Cofeee |
| Key Note Lecture | |
| 09:00 | Is There a Language of Truth? by Matías Martínez (Wuppertal) |
| 09:45 | Break |
| Parallel Session 5 | |
| 10:00 | Criminal Law: Between Fiction and Values by Michał Peno (Szczecin) |
| 10:20 | Comparative Legal Narrative: Framework for First Instance Proceedings by Helena Whalen-Bridge (Singapore) |
| Parallel Session 6 | |
| 10:00 | Storytelling in Court Cases Concerning Violence Towards Police Officers by Julie Høivik (Oslo) |
| 10:20 | Narratives on Abuse in Investigations and Trials by Gunilla Byrman & Joacim Lindh (Växjö) |
| 11:00 | Break |
| Plenary Session | |
| 11:15 | Narrating Culpability in the Case of Susanne from Mainz: Immigration Fears and Reported Details by Greta Olson (Giessen) |
| 11:35 | Narration or Subsumption? Two Operations of Imputing Crime and Punishment by Werner Gephart (Bonn) |
| 12:15 | Lunch |
| Parallel Session 7 | |
| 13:15 | Speech Representation in Written Judgements by Espen Ingebrigtsen (Bergen) |
| 13:35 | Quotations in and of the Witness Statements in Criminal Trials by Audun Kjus (Oslo) |
| Parallel Session 8 | |
| 13:15 | Using Artificial Intelligence in Narratives in the Criminal Process by Chen Meng Lam (Singapore) |
| 13:35 | Narrated History in the Court Records of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) by Marlene Weck (Freiburg) |
| 14:15 | Break |
| Plenary Session | |
| 14:30 | Narratives of Guilt and Innocence: The Evidentiary Power of Narrative in Wrongful Conviction Cases by Ralph Grunewald (Wisconsin-Madison) |
| 14:50 | Narrative in the Judgment by Frode Helmich Pedersen (Bergen) |
| 15:30 | Open Forum and Wrap Up |
| Evening Program | |
| 19:00 | Conference Dinner at Colonialen, Litteraturhuset |
