Law & Literature, University of Louisville (Brandeis)

This course will present insights into the nature of law and social justice through the prism of literature. Each class will explore timely and timeless topics arising out of the search for justice. How can Orestes extricate himself from the duty to avenge the murder of his father by killing his own mother? How shall Captain Vere punish Billy Budd’s reflexive act that results in the death of a superior officer aboard ship in wartime? How is Antigone to obey the religious law requiring her to bury her brother and the state’s decree that she may not? Justice is a pendulum that swings between the letter of the law and the spirit of equity. We shall plot the course of justice through the eyes of art and the imagination of storytellers. Poets and litterateurs are the unacknowledged legislators of the world. The instructor of this course has written about the practice of teaching Law and Literature here: https://web.archive.org/web/20220429074544/https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/images/public_education/MayJune2014_Vish.pdf 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.