Law - International Law and Litertre

Catalog description

This course covers law “as” literature, law “in” literature, and law “with” literature: interpretation; themes; and rhetoric, respectively. In Part One (“as”), treaties are analyzed as a form of literature using literary criticism methods, comparing those methods with standard legal interpretation tools. In Part Two (“in”), classic works of fiction and poetry are studied, especially those by William Shakespeare (England), and also by (e.g.,), Albert Camus (France), E.M. Forster (England), Seamus Heaney (Ireland), Franz Kafka (Czechoslovakia), and Rabindranath Tagore (India). These canonical writers are read closely to spot enduring legal themes common across centuries and civilizations, including justice and morality, vengeance and mercy, obedience and rebellion, wealth and poverty, and fairness and prejudice. In Part Three (“with”), renowned historical speeches are analyzed to see how they manifest Aristotle's five principles of Rhetoric, with illustrations from (e.g.,) Winston Churchill (England), John F. Kennedy (United States), Martin Luther King (United States), and Jimmy Carter (United States). There is no exam. Rather, students draft four short, intensive assignments (a treaty, memo, op-ed piece, and speech, which they also deliver). Students must read Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar (1599-1600) and Measure for Measure (1603-1604) before the first class. These plays inform the course, including the writing assignments.