Selected Topics in Law and Literature Seminar

Catalog description

An interdisciplinary seminar examining the dynamic relationship between legal systems and first-person accounts of enslavement in literary texts and oral statements. Through focused study of autobiographical narratives from the late-eighteenth century up to the Civil War, the seminar explores how narrative shapes legal thought, how law functions as a cultural and rhetorical practice, and how literary works engage questions of justice, rights, responsibility, and institutional authority. Attention is given to the ways literature documents lived experience, critiques existing legal frameworks, and imagines alternative forms of legal order, including domestic, customary, and international traditions. Emphasis is placed on close reading, historical and cultural context, creative thinking about laws addressing enslavement, and sustained analytical research culminating in a substantial scholarly project.