Truth about Lies: Literature and Law

Catalog description

This course will use filmed and written testimony, literature, guest lecturers, and scientific and philosophical studies to explore unreliable first-person narratives ? narratives told by speakers who blur, conceal, falsify, confuse, obfuscate, misunderstand or mistake the truth. Students will learn the types and characteristics of unreliable narratives; how to assess reliability; how to comparatively analyze conflicting narratives; and how to make and support arguments using unreliable narratives as evidence. The materials considered will include films, such as behavioral scientist Dan Ariely's documentary (Dis)Honesty: the Truth About Lies; essays on unreliable narratives, such as philosopher Harry Frankfurt's essay, On Bullshit; literary examples of unreliable narratives such as Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart; and first-person witness testimony. The course will also feature speakers, including from the Innocence Project, who have personal experience of assessing, constructing, deploying, and challenging first-person narratives in legal cases. Students will learn: the types and characteristics of unreliable first-person narratives; how to assess the reliability of first-person narratives; how to close-read first-person narratives and identify words, metaphors, idioms and other aspects of language that may signify implicit biases or sway subtly sway interpretations; how to comparatively analyze conflicting first-person narratives; and how to make and support arguments using unreliable narratives as evidence. Students will also learn to recognize and reflect on the roles narratives play in legal proceedings, decisions, and opinions, and how unreliability affects those roles.