This course concentrates on possible relationships between law and literature. The major themes will be the depiction of law and lawyers in popular and highbrow fiction; the relationship between the interpretation of legal and literary texts; law in utopia and dystopia; crime, punishment and racial justice and the romantic conception of authorship. Fair warning: the course involves considerable reading – but almost all of it consists of works of fiction. For the final exam, which you will have 2 weeks to complete, you will be given a list of very broad essay topics brought up by the books we have read, and will write 2, 2000 word essays on the topics of your choice.
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.
Subject Area
LawGeographic Region
South AtlanticUniversity or College
Duke UniversityFunding Status
PrivateEndowment (according to NACUBO's U.S. and Canadian Institutions Listed by Fiscal Year 2020 Endowment Market Value and Change* in Endowment Market Value from FY19 to FY20) ($1,000)
8474071Annual Tuition and Mandatory Fees 2021-2022 ($) (Resident; Non-resident, where applicable)
68400Course Title
Law and LiteratureTerminal Degree of Instructor(s)
JDPosition of Instructor(s)
Professor of LawAcademic Year(s) Active
2021, 2020, 2019, 2017, 2016Primary Works on Reading List
Auden, Law Like Love; “Slave Come to my Service” – Akkadian poetry from the 10th century B.C.; Jean-Paul Sartre, The Words (excerpts); Herman Melville, Billy Budd; Sophocles, Antigone; Jean Anouilh, Antigone; Charles Dickens, Bleak House (2 classes); Ursula le Guin, The Dispossessed; George Orwell, 1984; Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad; Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale; Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (novella); Blade Runner (ideally “The Director’s Cut,” but any version will do); James Boyle, “The Line” (Additional readings packet); Kazuo Ishiguro, Remains of the Day; Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird; Harper Lee, Go Set a Watchman; Fyodor Dostoievsky, Crime and Punishment; Jack Abbott, In the Belly of the Beast; Supplementary materials on Abbott; Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich; Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow and Its Critics (excerpts); Tom Wolfe, The Bonfire of the Vanities (2 classes); Franz Kafka, The Trial; and Herman Melville, Bartleby the Scrivener.
