Practices of Restitution: Law and Aesthetics in Modern Germany

Author:   Laura Petersen (University of Lucerne)
Publisher:   Cambridge University Press
ISBN:  

9781009514910


Pages:   270
Publication Date:   22 January 2026
Format:   Hardback
Availability:   Not yet available, will be POD   Availability explained
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Practices of Restitution: Law and Aesthetics in Modern Germany


Overview

Since the end of the Second World War, restitution in Germany – Wiedergutmachung – has been mainly understood as part of state or private law. This book offers a different approach, arguing that authors and artists have also taken up a responsibility for restitution. Deploying the literal translation 'making-good-again', this book focuses on the 'making' of law, literature and visual art to argue that restitution is a practice which is found in different genres, sites and temporalities. The practices of restitution identified are dynamic, iterative and incomplete: they are practices of failure. Nevertheless, in this book, the question of how to conduct restitution emerges as a material question of responsibility asked through the making of texts and objects in different genres, including law. The resulting text is a unique expansion and re-conceptualisation of the practices of jurisprudence, restitution and responsibility in the context of the aftermath in Germany. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.

Full Product Details

Author:   Laura Petersen (University of Lucerne)
Publisher:   Cambridge University Press
Imprint:   Cambridge University Press
ISBN:  

9781009514910


ISBN 10:   1009514911
Pages:   270
Publication Date:   22 January 2026
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming
Availability:   Not yet available, will be POD   Availability explained
This item is yet to be released. You can pre-order this item and we will dispatch it to you upon it's release. This is a print on demand item which is still yet to be released.

Table of Contents

1. Practices of Restitution in the Aftermath: An Introduction; 2. Glossing Restitution: Walter Schwarz and Re-forming the Practice of Law; 3. Literary Restitution: W. G. Sebald, Alexander Kluge, Heimrad Bäcker and the Responsibilities of Writing; 4. Artistic Restitution: Institutions and the Limits of Art by Anselm Kiefer and Gerhard Richter; 5. Memorial Restitution: A Walking Tour of Berlin's Memorial Landscape; 6. Making-Good-Again? A Conclusion.

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Author Information

Laura E. Petersen is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute for Interdisciplinary Legal Studies, University of Lucerne, Switzerland. She is the winner of the Zipporah B. Wiseman Prize for Scholarship on Law, Literature and Justice (2021) and the Harold Luntz Prize (2023).

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Latest Reading Guide

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