Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

Written by Ariano Suassuna, Auto da Compadecida was conceived in the light of novels and popular stories from the Northeast. In this sense, the narrative revolves around João Grilo and Chicó. Caricatured figures, the protagonists are humble and represent the northeastern people who live at the mercy of public policies, who do not have access to their basic rights and who, faced with this reality – the lack of opportunities – see no other way out but sin. Within this scenario, the theory of co-culpability of the argentine jurist Eugenio Raúl Zaffaroni is inserted, which consists of recognising the influences of social inequality in determining the subjects for crime, that is, understanding that social, political, economic and educational needs influence particularly in the free will of agents, who without means of livelihood, lean towards the commission of unjust criminal acts – in Auto da Compadecida, of sins. From this perspective, supported by the deductive method of approach, and by the methods of explanatory and comparative procedure, the present research, in short, has the purpose of bringing to light the intersections between the judgment of João Grilo in the work of Ariano Suassuna and the theory of criminal co-culpability taught by Eugenio Zaffaroni.

This paper discusses the importance of literature for the study of the Sociology of Law, via the work Os Bruzundangas of Brazilian novelist Lima Barreto. Lima Barreto's production stands out especially for this purpose in view of his militant literature, which is amplified in light of the realistic and autobiographical character imprinted in his productions, always combining the the collective struggle with the individual and the institutions themselves with society, a true social and practical dimension of law. To examine this dimension in Lima Barreto’s work, the paper presents a reflection on the traveling narrator of Os Bruzundangas. The paper indicates that this narrative focus makes it possible to articulate the realistic and autobiographical characters by incorporating the narrator's personal experiences, but, simultaneously, because the traveler is not the main character of the chronicles, this figure also allows the narrative of the paradoxes and tensions of the operation of Brazilian legal system in the First Republic. Moreover, the paper selects three chronicles that are part of the work for a closer examination of the social dimension of the law, namely: Constituição; Mandachuva e As eleições. The conclusive remark is to understand that Lima Barreto's vanguardism echoes as a privileged point of view of the social dimension of Brazilian law and, at the same time, represents an invitation for the study of the relationship between Sociology of Law and Literature.

What is the real meaning of punishment as an instrument to rehabilitate the condemned? At what point should the path of evil – which is the cause of the offense – lead to good – which is (should be) the result? These are the questions faced by the author in the work of Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter (1850), which seem to provide some insights into the subject of atonement. In the story of Hester Prynne and in the way the protagonist of the novel is related to the punishment that had been inflicted on her, perhaps it can be found some indications that allow to confirm, in the end,  both of the stated theses, namely: the modern impossibility of materializing a punishment that has atonement as its purpose and, at the same time, its persistence as a reminder, as a voice that cannot be silenced completely.

Based on the argument that musical interpretation is closer to law than literary interpretation – as it also includes the notion of performance –, this text analyzes the notions of musical rhythm and legal rhythm. For this purpose, it takes as examples the musical manifestations of Andalusian gitanos and of Eskimos.

This paper approaches the literary work The Prisoner (O Prisioneiro) by the author Erico Verissimo with the objective of proposing a reflection on the prohibition against the practice of torture, mainly from the perspective of International Law and Human Rights. Furthermore, the article explores the dilemma of torture experienced by the character “Lieutenant” and the “Prisioner”, establishing a dialogue between Verissimo's work and the main constitutional, regional and international legal instruments that aim to repudiate, prohibit and penalize the practice of this extreme form of violence. Final considerations include the topicality and the relevance of the social criticism present in the romance The Prisoner for our times, also conjecturing about the reciprocal relationship between the realization of Human Rights and civilizing progress.

In the year that marks the centenary of the anthropophagic movement, inaugurated in the week of modern art, the current scenario concerning violations of the rights of indigenous peoples is intriguing. Indigenous peoples in Brazil have suffered and continue to suffer numerous violations concerning their cultures, organizations, territories, and bodies. The historical marks left during the years of national formation solidified in Brazilian society from a dominant perspective of cultural, economic, and legal bias contrary to indigenous peoples. In this sense, the objective of the present investigation is to analyze the viability of the anthropophagic movement as a perspective that favors the consolidation of indigenous rights in Brazil, considering the articulation between law and art. Thus, the hypothesis is that: through the possibilities of implications between law and art, the anthropophagic movement reveals itself as an instrument for resizing the struggle for the rights of indigenous peoples in Brazil. The methodological structure instrumentalizes the potential of the arts as a way of questioning and materializing demands.

This article aims to analyze Fyodor Dostoevsky's perception of the jury's court procedure and the performance of legal professionals in this context, as portrayed in the judgment of Dimitri Karamázov in the work Brothers Karamázov. Thus, the present paper deals with the Russian judicial reform of 1864, responsible for the introduction of the jury system in the country, and how Dostoevsky understood this profound change in the system to then deal with the object of the article. In this paper, the atmosphere built by the author about the procedure is analyzed, as well as the description of the law operators involved and the verdict itself, an opportunity in which it is concluded that the author traces a negative, even satirical, perception about the jury court, thus characterizing it as both dramatic and comic at the same time. It is concluded that for the author, this space becomes a theater in which lawyers are concerned with rhetoric to the detriment of facts and that juries are prone to commit judicial errors.

  Abstract: The present work proposes a cartographic immersion through studies in “Law and Literature”, questioning the possibilities opened by this field in the process of jurist training. Along the way, we analyze the emergence of the Law and Literature Movement in the United States in 1973, as well as the openning works of authors such as Irving Browne, John Wigmore, Benjamin Cardozo and Lon Fuller. We also investigated the consolidation of “Law and Literature” in Brazil, highlighting the pioneering spirit of Aloysio de Carvalho Filho, Gabriel Lemos Brito and, especially, Luis Alberto Warat, whose contributions were and continue to be indispensable for the critical theory of Law.  Therefore, we outline the main theoretical aspects and face some methodological questions that we consider essential for a better understanding and development of this field of research.  Finally, we conclude with a critical reflection on the creative and transgressive potential of artistic and literary experience for legal training.

In recent times, autofiction is becoming increasingly popular in the literary scene. Although it has also been framed as “literature of the self”, this type of text is not limited to narrating only the writer, because by telling their experiences, authors describe and narrate others. This is where legal problems can arise. In this article we will explore the liquid genre of autofiction, with numerous examples of past and recent works, to analyze the conflicts that can arise between the freedom of literary creation and the personality rights of those portrayed in a work. We will rely on some cases that have reached the Spanish and foreign courts to delimit and weigh the rights involved, and we will see to what extent criteria of veracity, creative originality, or recognition by the readers of the supposedly fictitious characters in real people can be applied. We will also examine the so-called “fiction clauses” inserted in some works of autofiction, whose effectiveness has already been questioned in some cases by the courts.