Reading researcher emotions in law and emotion scholarship: a perspective from literary criticism and theory

The article offers alternative ways to frame the relationship between authorial emotions and methodology in law and emotion research using strategies from literary criticism and theory. Drawing on a brief history of literary criticism and theory, on the work of John Law in After Method , and on critical strategies used by literary critics, the article suggests that expressions of authorial emotion in law and emotion scholarship are always constructed, partial and mutually constitutive with methodologies. To demonstrate this, the article analyses contrasting constructions of authorship present in their own work, then draws on strategies from literary criticism and theory to analyse a number of recent publications in law and emotion studies. The article suggests that representations of authorial emotion are generative, interact with methodology, and create new knowledge. Strategies such as close reading, reading for form, symptomatic reading, curatorial and appreciative reading offer not only alternative ways of understanding the relationship between authorial emotions and methodology but a greater range of choices to law and emotions researchers.