03/19/07
Summer ENG 276 Class “Literature and the Law”
Trisha Brady is teaching a summer session of ENG 276 this summer. Having looked at the course description and reading requirements, this class looks to be a very interesting pick that will broach some very relevant and insightful reading material. I’d highly recommend this course to any Pre-Law student! Below is Professor Brady’s contact information if you have questions regarding the course, as is also the registration information. Click on the “read more” below to read the full course description.
ENG 276
Literature and the Law
Section: JR
Registration: 436346
Instructor: Trisha Brady
tmbrady@buffalo.edu
A course in Literature and the Law is usually described as a “law in literature course,” which utilizes fiction to discuss the law and legal system as they are represented in literature, or as a “literature in law course,” which utilizes the methodology of literary criticism to assess and interpret laws as well as legal processes. Literature in law courses often discuss the law as literature and treat the law as a text that is open to interpretation and revision. This course will provide an opportunity for us to think about the relationships between literature and law within both of the aforementioned contexts. And, we will have discussions about the larger questions of law while reading engaging works of fiction and non-fiction that inspire and challenge us with case studies and creative commentary.
Both literature and the law can perpetuate or challenge cultural ideas and norms, including notions of justice. This course will explore the intersections between Constitutional Law and American Literature. And, our objectives include: 1) an examination of how the legal system has been represented in American literature, 2) a discussion of the law as both a source of and response to societal conflicts, 3) a discussion of how literature, as protest, has affected citizens and effected changes in the law, and 4) approaching the law as literature. We will build our discussions around the following topics: rhetoric and the elements of argument; narrative, storytelling, and framing; judging: choice and responsibility; formalism; law, norms, and power; the paradoxes of equity; identity and conformity; interpretation, authority, and legitimacy; and punishment, retribution, and redemption. Primary texts include novels by Herman Melville, Toni Morrison, and others. In addition to legal documents and briefs, we will be reading legal briefs and texts that can be classified as critical, historical, documentary, philosophical, autobiographical, and political. The secondary texts will serve as a point of departure for our discussions while offering the course continuity.
Primary Texts:
The Declaration of Independence and The U.S. Constitution (along with selected Amendments)
The Bill of Rights
The Fugitive Slave Act
Selected Supreme Court Decisions and Legal Briefs
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter
Herman Melville’s Billy Budd
Susan Glaspell’s “A Jury of Her Peers”
Toni Morrison’s Beloved (and the Margaret Garner case)
*Secondary and critical texts will be bundled in a course packet/reader. Novels will be available at Talking Leaves.
Requirements: regular attendance, a mid-term exam, three short (2 page) response papers, a final research paper (ten - twelve pages in length).
