Law, Language and Literature, Seattle University

This course examines the ways in which language lies at the heart of the law and of lawyering. Language and legal meaning are coterminous. Not coincidentally, language and literary meaning are coterminous as well. We will look at this relationship between law and literature, one that is endlessly fascinating. Along the way we will discuss works by Shakespeare, Harper Lee, Herman Melville, Susan Glaspell, Mark Twain, and a host of contemporary authors of legal fiction. For its inquiry, the course borrows from literature and literary criticism, rhetoric, linguistics, and jurisprudence. In addition to looking at how language creates both legal and literary meaning, we will also think about how the language of the law contributes to, or determines, our sense of legal culture, our sense of community, and our sense of self-not unlike how literary language creates a world. The format for the course is that of a graduate seminar. Students will read selected materials, participate in class discussion, and write several short or medium-length papers. 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.