Courses

    This seminar will approach the law and legal professions through a broad-gauged study of their depiction in fiction and drama throughout world history. Beginning with the Antigone of Sophocles and proceeding through time up to the present, students will be required to read representative works and prepare a research paper drawing on the course readings, discussion and other works of their choice. Other authors whose works will likely be included are Shakespeare, Dickens, Stendahl, Dostoyevsky, Agatha Christie, Louis Auchincloss and Scott Turow. The major purpose of the course is to compare and contrast competing visions, largely the creation of non-lawyers, which have had a powerful influence on the development of popular understanding of how the law works. The moral imagination of law--its realities and possibilities--is a major element of this seminar. The course will not undertake literary interpretive questions often considered in "Law and Literature" courses. The nature of this course requires regular attendance and participation in the discussions during the course of the seminar.