LAW 6710 - [Law and Literature]

Fall. 3 credits. Letter grades only.

Next offered 2014-2015.

E. Anker.

This seminar will study the relationship between law and literature to pose broad questions about the interpretive and other stakes of different theoretical approaches to literary criticism. We will consider frameworks for conjoining literature with law that are established (narratology, psychoanalysis, rhetoric) and new (cultural studies, performance, globalization), applying these analytics to specific issues (immigration, marriage, human rights) as well as literary texts. We will thereby investigate the evolution of law and literature as a field of inquiry, examining its institutional-intellectual genesis and its contemporary formations. While ranging across historical periods, we will in particular ask about the future directions of law and literature. To what emerging debates might law and literature scholars turn? What new methodologies and problems remain insufficiently explored?