EU law and law and humanities: a novel method inspired by Paul Ricoeur and James Boyd White

Everything we do as jurists is connected to, and dependent upon, our reading and writing of texts. The acknowledgement of law's literary and creative character opens up the perspective of introducing literary theory and hermeneutic philosophy for the jurist's practice. In legal theory, the interdisciplinary field of law and literature, by now morphed into law and humanities, addresses the various theoretical aspects of this perspective. This chapter first traces the aspects of law and humanities relevant for the study of European Union (EU) law, that is, beyond the attention traditionally paid to national spheres and jurisdictions, such as US constitutional law. There is good reason to do so. EU law has to bridge a multitude of interests, cultures, languages and legal traditions. A jurist's praxis in EU law is a complex and creative process of reading and writing, making meaning across cultures and telling a common story of European integration. So far, very few law and humanities scholars have focused on substantive EU law - a void that this chapter aims to fill. By way of exemplary exercise, this chapter therefore connects the work of leading law and humanities scholars, among them the US legal theorist James Boyd White, with the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur's legal hermeneutics to propose a novel methodology for the study and practice of EU law, including attention to its narration by the Court of Justice of the EU.