International Law and Literature, University of Kansas

International Law and Literature (ILAL) covers both law “as” literature and law “in” literature, plus legal rhetoric in a manner that is both creative and practical. Lectures, class discussions, readings, and assignments represent both the “legal” and the “literary” side, focusing on international legal issues. In Part One, international legal texts, specifically treaties and statutes that implement treaties, are studied as a form of literature. They are analyzed using techniques of literary criticism, comparing and contrasting those methodologies with standard tools of treaty and statutory interpretation. These texts are looked at as narratives that tell a story, i.e., legal narratives that speak of what should happen based on what has happened. Classic texts written by lawyers from the Law and Literature movement are used, such as those by Justice Benjamin Cardozo, Judge Richard Posner, Dean Roscoe Pound, and Professor Richard Weisberg. They are supplemented with helpful tools about how lawyers can improve the quality of their writing. In Part Two, classic works of great fiction and poetry, such as Plato (Ancient Greece), William Shakespeare (England), Albert Camus (France), E.M. Forster (England), and Franz Kafka (Czechoslovakia), are studied to reveal enduring legal themes common across all countries. So, too, are works by the Nobel Prize winning poets, Seamus Heaney (Ireland) and Rabindranath Tagore (India). Those themes include justice and morality (and more specifically, the rule of law versus equity), obedience and rebellion (implicating custom, law, and the political order), wealth and poverty (and more generally, law, society, and power), fairness and prejudice (including implicit bias), and punishment and redemption (including retribution/revenge versus rehabilitation and forgiveness). In Part Three, renowned historical speeches are studied (both in their written form and as presented orally or re-enacted) to reveal how they follow Aristotle’s five principles of Rhetoric, and thus what makes them famous. Illustrations include Winston Churchill (England), John F. Kennedy (United States), and Martin Luther King (United States). Students draft 4 short documents that satisfy the Professional Writing Requirement: 1 treaty in connection with Part One; 1 legal memo and 1 media commentary in connection with Part Two; and 1 speech in connection with Part Three (which students also deliver orally). These documents are assessed according to specific criteria presented at the start of the course, with an emphasis on substantive and stylistic quality over style. There is no final exam, nor any research paper. There are no prerequisites for this course. No background in International Law or in English or World Literature is assumed. The necessary background will be provided through lectures, class discussions, and readings. The course is open to students in all degree programs (J.D., Two Year J.D., LL.M., and S.J.D.), as well as to non-law students and Overseas Visiting Scholars. The course qualifies for the Certificate in International Trade and Finance (namely, the “Comparative and Public International Law” element). It has been remarked that the Humanities, which of course include Literature, is the academic pursuit devoted to understanding, exploring, and celebrating human creativity in all its forms. The Humanities is where we lay ourselves bare, where we cut to the heart of who we are, what we do, how we do what we do, and why we do what we do. These observations hold true of Law, too, and a fortiori, of Law and Literature. Together, they imbricate (overlap, cover) all of human existence. Through ILAL, we see that what we read and write take on a life beyond us. We study creation, invention, change, obsolescence, and destruction. We feel hope and joy. We differentiate the genuine from the illusory, the instinctive from the learned. Our imagination is our only boundary. This information has been collected for the Post-Discipline Online Syllabus Database. The database explores the use of literature by schools of professional education in North America. It forms part of a larger project titled Post-Discipline: Literature, Professionalism, and the Crisis of the Humanities, led by Dr Merve Emre with the assistance of Dr Hayley G. Toth. You can find more information about the project at https://postdiscipline.english.ox.ac.uk/. Data was collected and accurate in 2021/22.