The Law and Literature

Catalog description

The focus of this course/seminar will be the law, the legal process, and concepts of justice as they are treated in a number of works of fiction as well as by lawyers in judicial opinions and other writings. The fictional readings will be short stories (Tolstoy, Faulkner, Glaspell, Hawthorne, Cather, de Maupassant, Vonnegut, etc.) and two novellas. In-depth consideration of the materials should demonstrate to the student the wide gamut of emotions, human relationships, and ambiguities with which case law frequently does not adequately deal. The materials raise issues of morality, natural law, divine law, mercy, the limits of advocacy, and ethics all of which must deeply concern any lawyer who wishes to strive to fulfill the true object of his or her profession.