Law, Literature and Popular Culture Seminar, St. Thomas University

This course encourages students to (1) examine law as a form of literature (using critical theory from the Law and Literature movement), and (2) analyze images of law and lawyers in literature, film, and television, in order to gain new insights into their chosen profession. Topics may include the following: interpretation in law and in literature; the good lawyer in popular culture; race, gender, and justice in legal stories, etc. Readings typically range from judicial opinions to Shakespeare to slave diaries to graphic novels. The instructor of this course has published widely in the fields of Law and Literature, and Law and Popular Culture; for example, see Lenora Ledwon, Law and Literature: Text and Theory (1996, Garland Publishing) and David Ray Papke, Christine Corcos, Lenora Ledwon, et. al., Law and Popular Culture: Text, Notes, and Questions [2nd ed.] (2012, LexisNexis). 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.