Law & Literature

Professor Daniel J. Solove

Syllabus

Click Here for a PDF Version of the Syllabus

Note

This is a syllabus that Professor Solove has sometimes used for his Law & Literature course.  This is not a current syllabus and should not be used by students in lieu of the syllabus provided in class, as there may be some differences.  Much of this syllabus, however, is the same as the current syllabus. 

Course Description

This course will explore the intersection between law and literature.  Literature is important for understanding law because it teaches a certain way of thinking — one that is synthetic, creative, and comfortable with ambiguity and ambivalence.  Each class will explore one or more interrelated topics through a variety of literary and philosophical works of short to moderate length.  Readings will include works by Melville, Shakespeare, Kafka, Glaspell, Morrison, Capote, Garcia Marquez, and others.  Topics will include: formalism; the paradoxes of equity; narrative, storytelling, and framing; custom, law and the political order; law, society, and power; interpretation, authority, and legitimacy; punishment, retribution, and redemption; and others.  This course will provide an opportunity to think about the law in a new way, to read engaging works of fiction and non-fiction, and to examine the law from a humanistic and philosophical perspective.

I. INTRODUCTION
A. What Can Literature Teach Us About Law? (Class 1)

II: THE RULE OF LAW vs. EQUITY
A. Billy Budd and the Tragedy of Formalism (Classes 2 and 3)
B. Judging and Responsibility: Fuller’s Speluncean Explorers and Glaspell’s A Jury of Her Peers
(Classes 4 and 5)
C. Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice and the Paradoxes of Equity (Classes 6 and 7)

III: INTERPRETATION
A. Interpretation and Authority in Kafka’s The Trial (Classes 8 and 9)
B. The Power and Limits of Words and Rules (Class 10)
C. Rhetoric and Candor in Legal Analysis (Class 11)

IV: NORMS AND THE LAW
A. Norms and Narrative in Garcia Marquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold (Class 12)
B. Customs, Norms, and Law: Jackson’s Lottery and LeGuin’s Omelas (Class 13)
C. Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and the Limits of Law (Class 14)

V. JUDGMENT AND NARRATIVE
A. The Art and Ethics of the Trial: Anatomy of a Murder (Classes 15, 16, and 17)
B. The Complexity of Judgment: Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov (Classes 18, 19, and 20)
C. The Power of Narrative: Durrenmatt’s Traps, Dr. Death, and Dershowitz (Classes 21 and 22)
D. Capote’s True Crime Narrative: In Cold Blood (Class 23)

VI. LAW, JUSTICE, AND MORALITY
A. Law and Morality in Sophocles’ Antigone (Class 24)
B. Justice and Revenge in Kleist’s Michael Kohlhaas (Class 25)

Herman Melville
Billy Budd
Harrison Hayford & Merton Sealts, eds.
U. Chicago Press
ISBN 0226321320
(Amazon.com)

Franz Kafka
The Trial
Breon Mitchell trans.
Schocken Books edition
ISBN 0805209999
(Amazon.com)

Toni Morrison
The Bluest Eye
Penguin Books edition
ISBN 0452282195
(Amazon.com)

Truman Capote
In Cold Blood
Vintage Books edition
ISBN 0679745580
(Amazon.com)

William Shakespeare
The Merchant of Venice
Cambridge Univ. Press edition
ISBN 0521532515
(Amazon.com)

Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Chronicle of a Death Foretold
Vintage edition
ISBN 140003471X
(Amazon.com)

Sophocles
Antigone
(in The Oedipus Cycle)
Dudley Fitts & Robert Fitzgerald trans.
(Harvest Book edition)
ISBN 015602764X
(Amazon.com)

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Brothers Karmazov
Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky trans.
(Vintage edition)
ISBN 0679729259
(Amazon.com)

Heinrich von Kleist
Michael Kohlhas

Frances King trans.
(Mondial edition)

ISBN 159569076X
(Amazon.com)

Recommended Readings: I have listed extensive recommended further readings for each theme.  I certainly do not expect you to read them during the semester.  Rather, I include them with the hope that this course is merely a beginning of a life-long encounter with great works of literature and philosophy. 

Workload and Grading

Class Participation: This seminar depends upon your careful reading of the texts and your willingness to participate.  You will be expected to participate in class discussion.  20% of your grade will be based on class participation.

Short Questions: From time to time, I will pose short questions to the class.  I expect emailed responses of about a paragraph or two (300-500 words).  Your responses to these questions will be counted toward your class participation grade.

Essays:  You will write 2 long essays, of no more than 3000 words each (the word count excludes citations, which should be in footnotes). This translates to roughly 10 double-spaced pages in Times Roman font (there are about 300 words per page in this format).  Each essay should explore your thoughts, reactions, and ideas from the readings and the class discussions.  Essays should focus on the class readings.  Essays should have a thesis and should develop that thesis by delving into the assigned texts and discussing them in detail.

Each will count for 40% of your grade.

I. INTRODUCTION

A. WHAT CAN LITERATURE TEACH US ABOUT LAW?

Class 1: Introduction

Readings

Adam Liptak, Next on the Syllabus, Romeo v. Juliet
N.Y. Times (Oct. 30, 2002)

Daniel J. Kornstein, The Law and Literature
66 N.Y. State Bar Journal 34 (May/June 1994)

Benjamin Cardozo, Law and Literature (1925)

Ronald Dworkin, How Law Is Like Literature
in A Matter of Principle (1985)

Richard Posner, Law and Literature: A Misunderstood Relation (1st ed. 1988)

Richard H. Weisberg, Literature’s Twenty-Year Crossing Into the Domain of Law: Continuing
Trespass or Right by Adverse Possession?
 in Law and Literature: Current Legal Issues
(Michael Freeman & Andrew Lewis, eds. 1999)

Overview

The field of law and literature has often been divided into two areas – “law-in-literature” and “law-as-literature.”  Law-in-literature focuses on the depiction of law and jurisprudential questions in works of literature.   What insights can works of literature contribute  to the study of law?  In what ways does literature enhance our understanding of the law?  How does literature contribute to how we grapple with the larger jurisprudential issues in the law?

Law-as-literature examines legal opinions and arguments from a literary lens – as works of literature.  What similarities does law share with literature?  How does focusing on the construction of narratives by lawyers and judges contribute to our understanding of the law?  What role do rhetoric and style play in the crafting of judicial opinions?

Posner expresses skepticism about the extent to which literature can help us understand the law.  Do you agree with Posner’s arguments?  Contrast Posner to Weisberg, who explains how literature enables us to understand law in ways that other disciplines cannot.  Finally, consider Jane Baron, who offers a very critical, yet also hopeful, assessment of law and literature.

II. THE RULE OF LAW vs. EQUITY

A. MELLEVILLE’S BILLY BUDD AND THE TRAGEDY OF FORMALISM

Class 2: Melville’s Billy Budd

Readings

Daniel J. Solove, The Darkest Domain: Deference, Judicial Review, and the Bill of Rights
84 Iowa L. Rev. 941 (1999)

Paul W. Kahn, The Reign of Law (1997)

Herman Melville, Billy Budd, Sailor (1924)
(Harrison Hayford & Merton M. Sealts, Jr. eds. 1962)
 

Overview

It is often said that we live in a society governed by the rule of law rather than the passions and whims of particular individuals.  What does the rule of law mean?  What should be done when the application of a law to a particular case leads to injustice?

Formalism is a highly deductive approach to legal reasoning that understands the legitimacy of law to reside in the fixed immutable meaning of legal rules.  Formalists attempt to adhere strictly to the letter of the law, even if the outcome in a particular case seems unwise or unjust.  In contrast to a strict adherence to the letter of the law, equity involves making special exceptions in the law for unique cases and molding the law to reach just outcomes.

The excerpts from Daniel Solove and Paul Kahn provide a brief historical and theoretical background about formalism and the rule of law.

Herman Melville’s Billy Budd, published posthumously in 1924, explores the relationship between the letter of the law and equity.  As you read the book, think about how Captain Vere describes the dichotomy between the rule of law and “moral scruple.”  Does this dichotomy necessarily have to exist in the case of Billy Budd?  Does Vere really adhere to the rule of law or do his passions infect his judgment?

Read Chapter 21 twice.  It is very important and will be one of the focal points of our discussion.  Also consider why Melville discusses the surgeon’s thoughts about how Vere should have proceeded in the matter of Billy Budd (Chapter 20)?  Why does the narrator go into the digression about hidden madness in Chapter 11?

Class 3: Melville’s Billy Budd

Readings

Robert Cover, Of Creon and Captain Vere
in Justice Accused (1975)

Steven L. Winter, Melville, Slavery, and the Failure of the Judicial Process
26 Cardozo L. Rev. 2471 (2005)

Daniel J. Solove, Melville’s Billy Budd and Security in Times of Crisis
26 Cardozo L. Rev. 2443 (2005)

Overview

For this class, I have provided excerpts of secondary works interpreting Billy Budd. Robert Cover argues that Billy Budd is an allegory for how Melville’s father-in-law, Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, interpreted the Fugitive Slave Act.  Steven Winter provides more historical background.  Finally, Daniel Solove examines how Billy Budd addresses similar issues of security in times of crisis that we are facing today.

B. JUDGING AND RESPONSIBILITY IN FULLER’S SPELUNCEAN EXPLORERS AND GLASPELL’S JURY OF HER PEERS

Class 4: Fuller’s Speluncean Explorers

Readings

Lon L. Fuller, The Case of the Speluncean Explorers
62 Harv. L. Rev. 616 (1949)

Paul Butler, The Case of the Speluncean Explorers Revisited
112 Harv. L. Rev. 1917 (1999)

Overview

Judging involves making hard choices and taking responsibility for them.  Part of judging requires one to recognize the range of available choices, a skill that involves imagination and creativity.

Fuller’s The Case of the Speluncean Explorers presents an interesting fictional case, based loosely on the actual case of The Queen v. Dudley & Stephens, 14 Q.B.D. 273 (1884).  The opinions in Speluncean Explorers illustrate various jurisprudential approaches to grappling with applying a strict rule of law to a unique and compelling situation.  Think about the ways in which the situation in the Speluncean Explorers is related to that in Billy Budd.  Are there creative ways available to reconcile the rule of law with doing justice in this particular case?  Think about how the justices in the Speluncean Explorers approach the issue. Which judge’s opinion strikes you as most compelling?  How you would decide the case?

Do you think that Judge Tatting did the right thing by withdrawing and not reaching a decision?  Note that his choice not to decide resulted in the court’s affirming the convictions of the defendants.  In other words, his choice has effects.  In light of the consequences of his choice not to decide, is his choice a responsible one?

Next, consider Paul Butler’s fictional opinion resolving the issue from a radically different perspective.  What is the opinion’s view of the rule of law?  What role does the opinion argue the jury should have played in this case?

Class 5: Glaspell’s A Jury of Her Peers

Readings

Susan Glaspell, A Jury of Her Peers (1917)

Martha Minow, Words and the Door to the Land of Change: Law, Language, and Family Violence
43 Vand. L. Rev. 1665 (1990)

Toni M. Massaro, Peremptories or Peers?—Rethinking Sixth Amendment Doctrine, Images and
Procedures
64 N.C. L. Rev. 501 (1986)

Marina Angel, Susan Glaspell’s Trifles and A Jury of Her Peers: Woman Abuse in a Literary and
Legal Context
45 Buff. L. Rev. 779 (1997)

Liza Mundy, Fault Line
Washington Post Magazine (Oct. 26, 1997)

Overview

Turning to juries, consider Susan Glaspell’s story, A Jury of Her Peers.  What if the legal system cannot reach a just outcome?  Is it appropriate to circumvent the legal system?  Compare the women’s approach toward judging in A Jury of Her Peers to that in the opinions in the Speluncean Explorers and Bulter’s essay.  How is the women’s approach different/similar?  Is Minnie viewed by the women in A Jury of Her Peers as a Billy Budd figure?  In other words, do Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters protect Minnie because they think she is innocent?  If not, why?

The excerpted secondary commentary on A Jury of Her Peers provides useful background and insights.  Finally, the Mundy article explores the benefits and costs of attempting to solve a difficult problem (domestic violence) with a rigid rule-bound solution.

C. SHAKESPEARE’S THE MERCHANT OF VENICE AND THE PARADOXES OF EQUITY

Class 6: Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice

Readings

William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice (1597)

Overview

In Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, Shylock attempts to use the letter of the law (a strict literal interpretation of a contract) for sinister aims.  But is the equity in the play really fair?  The Merchant of Venice poses very deep questions about the double nature of both the rule of law and of equity as well.  Everything seems to have a dual side in this play.

Is Shylock a disadvantaged minority or a ruthless villain?  If Shylock is the villain, why is he so eloquent?  Why does the play seem to invite us to sympathize with him?  Given the way Antonio has treated Shylock in the past and Antonio’s pledge that he will treat him the same way in the future, why does Shylock loan the money to Antonio?  What is Shylock’s tone of voice?  Are his lines to be read seriously? Sarcastically?  Bitterly?

Consider the interwoven stories in the play: (1) the pound of flesh; (2) the rings; (3) Jessica and Lorenzo’s elopement; and (4) the caskets.  How are they related?  Why does the play not end with the culmination of the Shylock-Antonio trial?  Why have it end with a simple quibble between husband and wife?  Why include the ring episode at all?

Class 7: Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice

Readings

Kenji Yoshino, The Lawyer of Belmont
9 Yale J. L. & Humanities 183 (1997)

Overview

In this class, we will continue to discuss The Merchant of Venice.  We will focus considerable attention on Portia.  The Kenji Yoshino excerpt sets forth some ideas worth thinking about.

Consider the many “bonds” or contracts in the play: (1) Antonio and Shylock’s contact; (2) Bassanio’s oath to Portia never to part with the ring; (3) Portia’s father’s will; and (4) Antonio’s contract with Portia at the end.  Contrast all of the contracts in the play and how the characters respond to their being breached or carried out.  With regard to the Antonio/Shylock contract and the Bassanio/Portia contract, both are breached.  Why does Portia, who so extols the virtues of mercy in the context of the Antonia/Shylock contract, take such a rigid stance in the Bassanio/Portia contract? With regard to Portia’s carrying out her father’s will, pay attention to the casket scenes. Does she carry out her obligations to her father in good faith?  If not, in what ways does Portia cheat?

III. INTERPRETATION

A. INTERPRETATION AND AUTHORITY IN KAFKA’S THE TRIAL 

Class 8: Kafka’s The Trial

Readings

Franz Kafka, The Trial (1925)
(Breon Mitchell trans. 1998)

Samuel Wolff & Kenneth Rivkin, The Legal Education of Franz Kafka
22 Columbia-VLA J. Law & the Arts 407 (1998)

Parker B. Potter, Jr., Ordeal by Trial: Judicial References to the Nightmare World of Franz Kafka
3 Pierce L. Rev. 195, 195-96 (2005)

Overview

In this class we explore a novel that many say captures the modern condition of life – Franz Kafka’s The Trial.  Kafka’s works are surreal, have a dreamlike quality, and often have many bizarre twists and events.  They are allegorical; they are puzzling, enigmatic, and can be endlessly pondered over.  They resist one easy interpretation; in fact, they invite multiple interpretations.

The excerpt from Samuel Wolff and Kenneth Rivkin provides a brief background into Kafka’s legal education.  The short excerpt from Parker Potter demonstrates how frequently courts have made reference to Kafka’s The Trial. 

How do you characterize this novel?  Is it a comedy?  A satire?  An allegory?  Although it is frequently characterized as a dark and brooding novel, The Trial is often quite funny.  When Kafka read portions of the novel to his friends, it was reported that he read them in a way that had everyone laughing.  Reread some of the scenes looking for the humor in them.

The Trial works on many levels.  What is the “Law”?  What is the Court System?  What is the “trial” that is being conducted against K.?  The title in German for The Trialprobably more accurately translates to “The Process.”  Is the novel about the law and legal procedure?  Is it about totalitarianism?  Bureaucracy?  Is the novel an allegory about death and dying?  Is the trial is a psychological one and the events of the novel are symbolic of what is going on inside K.’s head (or take place inside K.’s mind)?  Is the novel about one’s becoming paranoid or insane? Is the novel meant to represent life itself, the modern condition?  Is the novel about our ability to find truth?  Is it about faith and religion and the inability to ever know divine Law or God?  Perhaps it is about all these things simultaneously and we are to see the connections and parallels among them.

Focus on the theme of the law and its interpretation.  The Trial illustrates the difficulty in arriving at the truth – in particular, the truth about the Law.  What is the Law? Does anybody have access to the Law?  Do the Court officials know what the Law is?  Does the Law even exist? What does the novel demonstrate about the way the law works — its authority, legitimacy, psychology, bureaucracy, procedure?  On pp. 215-217, the priest tells K. a parable.  The priest and K. then discuss various interpretations of the parable.  Read the parable again and think about how it relates to the novel.  What does this scene illustrate about interpretation?

Think about the Court that applies and enforces the law.  Why do the workings of the Court seem so makeshift and unprofessional?  Why are Court offices in attics?  The courtroom where K. initially appeared is really a “fully furnished living room.” (p. 55).  A portrait of an examining magistrate appears to have him sitting on a throne but he’s actually sitting on a kitchen stool with an old horse blanket folded over it. (p. 106).  What do these details and others tell you about the Court?  About the nature of authority?  About the legitimacy of the Court?

Focus as well on the background and personality of Josef K.  What type of a person is K.?  How much about K.’s life and personality do we learn?  How does the trial affect K.?  Although the novel begins with K. being arrested “one morning” (p.3), we later find out that this is K.’s 30th birthday.  His trial ends on his 31st birthday.  Why do you think this is?  After his arrest and his initial court proceeding, the Court seems to forget about K.  K. seems to seek out the Court rather than vice versa.  Perhaps he is not trying to escape from authority but is seeking it out.  What does this say about K. and about human nature in general?  What could K. be guilty of?  Is he guilty of a crime or is he just experiencing guilt?  Guilt about Fraulein Burstner?  Guilt over the way he lived his life?  Or generalized guilt without being tied to anything in particular?  Or is K. inexplicably subjected to suffering (perhaps K. is a modern version of Job)?

Class 9: Kafka’s The Trial

Readings

Blaise Pascal, Pensées, Nos. 44, 60, 130
in Pascal: Selections (Richard H. Popkin, ed. 1989)

Robin West, Authority, Autonomy, and Choice: The Role of Consent in the Moral and
Political Visions of Franz Kafka and Richard Posner
99 Harv. L. Rev. 384 (1985) (excerpt)

Martha Robinson, The Law of the State in Kafka’s The Trial
6 ALSA Forum 127 (1982)

Heidi E. Faletti, The Workings of Law in Kafka’s Der Prozess and Boll’s Die Verlorene Der
Katharina Blum
6 ALSA Forum 148 (1982)

Judge Alex Kozinski & Alexander Volokh, The Appeal
103 Mich. L. Rev. 1391 (2005)[optional reading]

Overview

In this class, we will continue to discuss The Trial. First, read the three short excerpts from Blaise Pascal’s Pensées (“Thoughts”).  Pascal was a 17th century mathematician and philosopher, and the Pensées were published posthumously seven years after his death in 1669.  Think about these musings by Pascal on the nature of law and authority in light of Kafka’s The Trial. 

The commentary about Kafka’s The Trial will provide you with some thoughts and ideas about the novel.  For your amusement, I have included a humorous fake judicial opinion based on The Trial written by Judge Kozinski, a federal appellate court judge on the 9th Circuit.  The Kozinski excerpt is optional reading.

Recall the final scene of The Trial.  What do you make of this scene?  When the window flings open in the building before K. dies (p.230), what do you make of all the questions asked about the human figure leaning out of the window?  And why when the knife is being passed over him does K. know that “it was his duty to seize the knife as it floated from hand to hand above him and plunge it into himself”?  Finally, what do you make of the final paragraph (p. 231)?

One final note.  In an instance of life imitating art, in the case of Joe Kafka v. United States, 121 S. Ct. 1365 (2001), the U.S. Supreme Court issued its typical one-sentence order, denying certiorari without explanation: “The petition for writ of certiorari is denied.”  Recall the parable in The Trial on pp. 215-17: “Before the Law stands a doorkeeper. . . . The doorkeeper sees that the man is nearing his end, and in order to reach his failing hearing, he roars to him: ‘No one else could gain admittance here, because this entrance was meant solely for you.  I’m going to go and shut it now.’”

B. THE POWER AND LIMITS OF WORDS AND RULES

Class 10: Freedom and Precision with Words

Readings

Webb v. McGowin
168 So. 196 (Ala. Ct. App. 1935)

Stanley Fish, The Law Wishes to Have a Formal Existence
in There is No Such Thing as Free Speech (1994)

Amy Hempel, In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried
in Reasons to Live (1985)

Charles Black, Law as an Art
in The Humane Imagination (1986)

Jacobellis v. Ohio
378 U.S. 184 (1964)

Paul Gewirtz, On “I Know It When I See It”
105 Yale L.J. 1023 (1996)

State v. Yanez
716 A.2d 759 (R.I. 1998)

Webb v. McGowin, 168 So. 196 (Ala. Ct. App. 1935)

Overview

Rules are constructed of words, and the application of law thus involves the reading and interpretation of words.  But one of the difficulties is that words and texts can be interpreted in many dramatically different ways.

Read the Webb v. McGowin case followed by Fish’s essay, The Law Wishes to Have a Formal Existence.  Is Fish correct in his views about the law?  If Fish is correct, so what?

The State v. Yanez case provides a stark illustration of some of the difficulties in statutory interpretation.  What is the correct interpretation of the statute in Yanez?  Is there a correct interpretation? Does this case illustrate Fish’s argument or can it be used to refute it?

Amy Hempel’s In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried is not expressly about law.  But it illustrates the theme of the limitations of words in general.  Focus on the theme of communication and speech in the story.  How does the narrator fail her friend?  Why is there so much trivia in the dialogue?  What does the ending about the chimpanzee mean?  The story suggests that in certain circumstances, words might be empty.  How does this apply to the law?

Charles Black takes a more optimistic view about imprecision in language.  He celebrates the lack of mathematical exactness in law.  What do you think of Black’s argument?

Paul Gewirtz’s essay explores Justice Stewart’s oft-criticized line in Jacobellis v. Ohio about obscenity – “I know it when I see it.”  This line has been used as an exemplar of judging by personal fiat rather than by the rule of law.  Gewirtz attempts to rehabilitate the line and he examines the role of nonrational elements in judicial decisionmaking.  Is his argument convincing?  What role should nonrational elements play in judicial decisionmaking?  Is it possible to eliminate such elements?  If they can’t be eliminated, how should we evaluate them?

Gewirtz contends: “We should encourage judges to believe and say: This is the best I can do now; it doesn’t solve all the problems, but it’s a start, and I’ll keep thinking.”  Do you agree?  Keep in mind that this was a criminal case.  Suppose Justice Stewart came out the other way and upheld the defendant’s criminal conviction.  Would an opinion saying “I know it when I see it” and “this is the best I can do” be justified?

C. RHETORIC AND CANDOR IN LEGAL ANALYSIS

Class 11: Rhetoric and Candor

Readings

Richard A. Posner, Cardozo: A Study in Reputation (1990)

Hynes v. New York Central R. Co.
131 N.E. 898 (N.Y. 1921)

Palsgraf v. Long Island R. Co.
162 N.E. 99 (N.Y. 1928)

Andrew L. Kaufman, Cardozo (1998)

Pierre N. Leval, Judicial Opinions as Literature
in Law’s Stories: Narrative and Rhetoric in the Law
(Peter Brooks & Paul Gewirtz eds. 1996)

Richard Weisberg, Poethics And Other Strategies of Law and
Literature (1992)

John Noonan, Jr., The Passengers of Palsgraf
in Persons and Masks of the Law (1976)

Princz v. Federal Republic of Germany
813 F. Supp. 22 (D.D.C. 1992)

Princz v. Federal Republic of Germany
26 F.3d 1166 (D.C. Cir. 1994)

Overview

This class, like the one before, will explore law-as-literature.  In this class, we will examine issues of style, rhetoric, and candor.

One of the main focal points of our discussion will be Judge (later Justice) Benjamin Cardozo.  Cardozo is considered one of the most influential judges of all time, and his opinions had a significant impact on the law (especially torts and contracts).  We will examine the role that style and rhetoric play in judicial opinions as well as the way that judges frame the facts of the case.  To what extent does the use of rhetoric make a judge less candid?  How much candor is desirable?

The first reading is Richard Posner’s Cardozo: A Study in Reputation, which provides an informative and interesting background about Cardozo’s life, work, and influence.

Next, examine two of Cardozo’s most well-known judicial opinions, Palsgraf v. Long Island R. Co., 162 N.E. 99 (N.Y. 1928) and Hynes v. New York Central R. Co., 131 N.E. 898 (N.Y. 1921).  You’re probably familiar with Palsgraf from your Torts class, and you might have read Hynes as well in Torts.  As you read the opinions, pay particular attention to Cardozo’s articulation of the facts and his style.

Richard Weisberg extols Cardozo’s use of rhetoric as well as the importance of rhetoric generally in judicial opinions.  Judge Pierre Leval has a very different view.  Who has the better argument?

Judge John Noonan’s The Passengers of Palsgraf, presents a very different take on the opinion than Weisberg.  Noonan points out a number of facts that are not contained in Cardozo’s opinion.  Are these facts relevant?  Why does Cardozo not include them?  Whose view of Palsgraf is more convincing, Weisberg’s or Noonan’s?  If you agree more with Noonan’s view, how does this impact Weisberg’s theses about the relationship between style and substance in judicial opinions?

Is Cardozo’s writing of the opinion so strongly and powerfully in support of his conclusion a distortion?  If a case is hard and a judge has a tough time coming to a conclusion, shouldn’t the opinion reflect this? Is Cardozo being candid?

Recall Paul Gewirtz’s essay on Justice Stewart’s famous “I know it when I see it” line.  Justice Stewart could have pretended to apply some legal doctrine or test, but he chose instead to be candid and admit that he really didn’t have an answer.  Should he be extolled for his candor?  What would Justice Cardozo have done?

In the Princz case, compare and contrast the three opinions in the case: Judge Stanley Sporkin’s district court opinion, Judge Douglas Ginsburg’s majority opinion, and Judge Patricia Wald’s dissent.  How does each judge narrate the facts?

Step out of your lawyer shoes and think about each judge’s opinion more as a lay person might.  How do you feel about the court’s analysis?  In terms of language and tone, which opinion do you prefer?  What are the virtues and vices of each?

This case presents another example of how a rule must be applied to a very unusual situation.  Does this case have similarities to the Speluncean Explorers case?  How would you decide this case?

IV. NORMS AND THE LAW

A. NORMS AND NARRATIVE IN GARCIA MARQUES’S CHRONICLE OF A DEATH FORETOLD

Class 12: Garcia Márquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold

 

Readings

Michael Hechter & Karl-Dieter Opp, Social Norms (2001)

Lawrence E. Mitchell, Understanding Norms
49 U. Toronto L.J. 177 (1999)

C. K. Allen, Law in the Making (7th ed. 1964)

Gabriel Garcia Márquez, Chronicle of a Death Foretold (1983)

Ruben Pelayo, Gabriel Garcia Márquez: A Critical Companion (2001)

Rosanna Cavallaro, Solution to Dissolution: Detective Fiction from Wilkie Collins to
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
15 Tex. J. Women & L. 1 (2005)

Overview

In the next few classes, we will explore the relationship between law and social norms.  Begin by reading the two short excerpts – one from Michael Hetcher and Karl-Dieter Opp, and other by Lawrence Mitchell.  What is a norm?  How is it different from the law?

The excerpt from C.K. Allen describes how norms and customs often form the foundation for law.

With this background of law and norms in mind, turn to Garcia Márquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold. Garcia Márquez was born in Columbia in 1928.  He is perhaps best known for his masterpiece, A Hundred Years of Solitude.  In 1982, he won the Nobel Prize in literature.   His novella, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, is based on a real murder that took place in Sucre, Columbia, in 1951.

The novella begins with the end – the murder of Santiago Nasar.  The novella reconstructs the events leading up to the murder by piecing together fragments from witnesses and documents. Legal narratives are often constructed of multiple voices.  Witnesses relay their perspective of a particular event, often shaded by biases, prejudices, and cloudy and selective memory.  Focus on what this reconstructed account tells us about the murder and about how and why it happened.  What role do social norms and customs play in the murder?  Who is responsible for Nasar’s death?  To what extent is the town complicit in the murder?

B. CUSTOMS, NORMS, AND LAW: JACKSON’S LOTTERY AND LEGUIN’S OMELAS

Class 13: Customs and Change

Readings

Shirley Jackson, The Lottery (1948)

Michel de Montaigne, Of Custom (1575)

John Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct (1922)

Urusula K. Le Guin, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas

Guido Calabresi, The Gift of the Evil Deity
in Ideals, Beliefs, and Attitudes in the Law (1985)

Overview

The first set of readings for this class involves the relationship between law, norms, and customs.  Much of the law emerges from norms and customs.  Often, customs remain widely practiced even after the reasons for their existence have become forgotten.  When we start to challenge customs, norms, and laws that we have previously accepted unthinkingly, what are the consequences?

Consider Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery. Does anyone in the society have a clear idea of why the lottery exists?  What purpose(s) does the lottery serve?  Why do the villagers cling to the lottery?  Mrs. Hutchinson contends that the lottery is unfair.  What is the nature of her critique?  What aspect of the lottery doesn’t she criticize?  What does this story tell us about the law?

The excerpts from Michel de Montaigne and John Dewey offer differing perspectives on the extent we can (and should) we change our customs.  How do they differ on this point?

The second set of readings explores the consequences of the critical awareness we acquire when we view norms, customs, and the law skeptically.  When we see things critically and reflectively, how does this change our behavior and policy choices?  In Le Guin’s The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, where do the ones who walk away from Omelas go?  Do you agree with the ones who walk away?  Is Omelas a better world than its alternative, the real world where many more live in terrible suffering?

Calabresi’s The Gift of the Evil Deity, explores the consequences of understanding the law with greater clarity.  In particular, Calabresi asks how our knowledge of the costs of society’s rules should effect our policy decisions.  Focus on Calabresi’s discussion of the rescue of the fool in the rowboat.  Why do we spend lots of money to rescue victims of disasters or accidents rather than spend the money on general safety measures that could save more lives?

Calabresi argues that in the “temple of truth” we realize that everything has a cost, that everything is a trade-off.  We realize that allowing automobiles involves a choice between lives and convenience.  What does it mean to acknowledge these choices?  Is this something that the ones who walk away from Omelas acknowledge?

C. MORRISON’S THE BLUEST EYE AN THE LIMITS OF LAW

Class 14: Morrison’s The Bluest Eye

Readings

Robert Ellickson, Order Without Law (1991)

Lawrence Lessig, The Regulation of Social Meaning
62 U. Chi. L. Rev. 943 (1995)

Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye (1970)

Overview

Law is not the only force regulating social conduct.  Social norms often play an even more profound role than the law in governing society.  The Robert Ellickson excerpt examines how a community of cattle ranchers and farmers in a small community do not rely much on the law but on their own set of social norms for resolving disputes with neighbors.  The Lawrence Lessig excerpt discusses ways in which the law can attempt to change norms.

Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye illustrates some of the sinister and troubling aspects of norms.  I assigned this work even though it is not expressly about the law because it has important ramifications for our understanding of the law’s relationship to society.  Focus on the absence of law in the book.  Notice all the instances that would ordinarily invoke a legal response or the protection of law: the delivery of the torn sofa to the Breedlove’s home, the molestation of Pecola by Cholly, the fact that Soaphead Church was a known child molester.  What impact would you expect the law to have in these situations?  Why is the law so noticeably absent in this story?  If the law could permeate into this society, would it have saved Pecola?

After being so ensconced in law, we are accustomed to seeing law as a dominant force shaping social structure.  In the society depicted in The Bluest Eye, however, we see the profound power of social norms in shaping social structure.  What are the central social norms at play in the novel?  What role could the law play to combat such norms?  Can the law do anything?  If so, what?  If not, what impediments would prevent the law from working?

The novel also explores the internalization of norms of oppression.  Why do the characters in the novel blame each other and fellow victims of oppression? Why does the community ostracize Pecola?  Why does the community participate in Pecola’s destruction?  Morrison writes: “One problem was centering: the weight of the novel’s inquiry on so delicate and vulnerable a character could smash her and lead readers into the comfort of pitying her rather than into an interrogation of themselves.” (p. 211).  What is Morrison trying to accomplish?  Why provoke sympathy for Cholly by describing his life and trauma?  Are we to feel sorry for him?  Forgive him?  If we blame Cholly, do we commit the flaw that Morrison sees the community as doing?

V. JUDGMENT AND NARRATIVE 

A. THE ART AND ETHICS OF THE TRIAL: ANATOMY OF A MURDER

Classes 15, 16, and 17: Trials and Narrative

Readings

Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
(directed by Otto Preminger; starring James Stewart and Lee Remick)

Michael Asimow, Anatomy of a Murder–The “Lecture” (1998)

Timothy Hoff, Anatomy of a Murder
24 Legal Studies Forum 660 (2000)

Overview

It’s movie time!  We will watch the great classic film, Anatomy of a Murder.  Because of its length (160 minutes), we will watch it over the span of two classes and then will discuss it in the third class.  As you watch the film, pay particular attention to the trial techniques of defense attorney Paul Biegler.  Is he a good lawyer or a sleazy manipulator – or something of both?  Does his famous “lecture” to his client cross the ethical line?

NOTE: We will watch the film in classes 20 and 21 and discuss it in class 22.  Please don’t read the Asimow and Hoff essays until after class 21 – they contain spoilers.

B. THE COMPLEXITY OF JUDGMENT: DOSTOYEVSKY’S THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV 

Class 18: Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov 

Readings

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
Parts I and II

Albert Camus, The Rebel (1954)

Mikhail Bakhitn, Problems of Dostoevksy’s Poetics 
(Caryl Emerson, trans. 1984)

Saul Bellow, Where Do We Go From Here: The Future of Modern Fiction
Michigan Quarterly Review 33 (1982)

Overview

Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov is one of the greatest novels ever written.  It is long and slow-moving in the beginning, but it picks up after the first hundred pages or so and becomes quite a page-turner.  I realize that the book is quite long and difficult, but bear with it and you will be rewarded.

The Brothers Karamazov is a novel of ideas, exploring the interrelationship between politics, religion, justice, judgment, and law.  At its center, it is a story about three brothers.  Ivan Karamazov is an intellectual and a thinker.  Dimitri (Mitya) Karamazov is the passionate one, who lives life to the fullest.  Alexei (Alyosha) is a quieter gentle person who is an apprentice to a monk.  Their father, Fyodor, is an irresponsible buffoon of a man, and he creates great tensions that spark the central drama of the novel.

The opening part of the book introduce the family, including their half-brother Smerdyakov, as well as others.  Focus on the differences between the brothers.  In what way are they different?  In what way are they similar?

What is Ivan’s belief system?  What are Ivan’s views toward crime and justice? Ivan says that if there is no immortality, then everything is permissible.  What does he mean by this?  What are Ivan’s beliefs about the nature of evil?  What does he mean that “no one’s to blame”?

How do Ivan, Alyosha, and Dimitri react to their father’s behavior? What is Zosima’s belief system?

Book 4 is titled “Strains.”  What are the strains involved in Book 4?

In Book 5, what is Ivan’s argument?  Try to follow it carefully.  Do you agree with Ivan?  How does the Grand Inquisitor story relate to the rest of the novel?

Book 6 focuses on the life of Zosima.  Dostoyevsky said it was meant to be a refutation of Ivan’s beliefs.  How does it contrast with Ivan’s ideas and worldview?  Does it refute Ivan?

Class 19: Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov

Readings

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
Part III

Overview

In Book 7, what is the significance of the parable of the onion?  What challenge does Alyosha face?  How does he respond to it?

Book 8 focuses on Dimitri.  What do we learn about him in this chapter?  Is he guilty of the crime he is accused of?

Book 9 involves the preliminary investigation of Dimitri.  Examine the questioning and investigation of Dimitri.  Why does it fail to get at the truth?

Compare and contrast the women of the book – Katerina (Katya), Grushenka, and Lise.

Class 20: Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov

Readings

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
Part IV and Epilogue

Gary Rosenshield, Western Law, Russian Justice: Dostoevsky, The Jury,
and the Law (2005)

Daniel J. Solove, Postures of Judging: An Exploration of Judicial Decisionmaking
9 Cardozo Studies in L. & Literature 173 (1997)

Overview

In Book 10, what is the significance of the subplot with the schoolboys?  Why does Dostoyevsky include it in the book?

In Book 11, what is the meaning of Ivan’s dream?  Why does Smerdyakov do what he does?  How does this affect Ivan?

Book 12 involves Dimitri’s trial.  What is the argument in the prosecutor’s speech?  In the defense attorney’s speech?  Does justice occur at the end of the trial?  How does Dostoyevsky depict the trial and the law?

The excerpt from Gary Rosenshield provides background about the jury trial in Russia during the time Dosoyevsky wrote The Brothers Karamazov.  The excerpt from Daniel Solove examines how judges are inescapably caught in tension between generality and particularity and how The Brothers Karamazov can illuminate legal philosophy.

C. THE POWER OF NARRATIVS: DURRENMATT’S TRAPS, DR. DEATH AND ERSHOWITZ

Class 21: Dürrenmatt’s Traps

Readings

Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Traps (1960)

Overview

We construct stories of selfhood as well as stories about law and justice.  How are these two types of stories related?  What are the consequences of constructing narratives?  How do we evaluate narratives?  Are there any “true” narratives?

The novella, Traps, by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, a German playwright, is a remarkable work of literature (which, sadly, is out of print).  How does the preface relate to the themes in the novella?  There is a lot of talk of accidents in the preface and in the story.  How does this relate to the other themes of the story?  Who is Alfredo Traps?  Which narrative best describes him?  Why does Traps do what he does at the end?

Also consider the philosophy of the retired legal figures toward storytelling and the truth.  Do they understand the consequences of their storytelling?  Do the retired legal figures understand Alfredo Traps?  Does Traps understand himself?  Do we understand Traps and who he is at the end of the novella?

Class 22: Narrative

Readings

Ron Rosenbaum, Travels With Dr. Death (1990)

Alan Dershowitz, Life Is Not a Dramatic Narrative
in Law’s Stories: Narrative and Rhetoric in the Law
(Peter Brooks & Paul Gewirtz eds. 1996)

Overview

We will continue discussing Traps in the next class, but will also weave into the discussion Ron Rosenbaum’s Dr. Death essay.  How does Rosenbaum’s essay relate to Traps?  Is Dr. Death telling fictions?  Is Ron Rosenbaum engaging in a similar activity as Dr. Death?

Finally, consider how the Dershowitz essay relates to the other two works.  What does this essay add to the themes and ideas in Traps and Dr. Death?

D. CAPOTE’S TRUE CRIME NARRATIVE: IN COLD BLOOD

Class 23: Capote’s In Cold Blood

Readings

Truman Capote, In Cold Blood (1965)

Daniel Mendelsohn, The Truman Show
N.Y. Review of Books (Nov. 17, 2005)

Overview

Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood provides an extensive account of the mindset of murderers.  Unlike Billy Budd or the cave-explorers in the Speluncean Explorers, the murderers in Capote’s book are not innocent or justified in their actions.  However, Capote aims to provide us with a more complete understanding of the murderers.  To what extent does this affect the way we punish them?

Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood is based on true events.  It was not written to be a work of fiction, but to be a true crime narrative.  Capote became interested in the events in the novel by noticing a small newspaper article about the murders in 1959.  He spent five years meticulously researching the crime.  Capote interviewed Dick and Perry extensively, and grew especially fond of Perry.  The book was published in 1966, a year after Dick and Perry were executed.

Focus on how the law handles the way criminals like Dick and Perry are judged and punished.  Do you think Dick and Perry were appropriately punished?  Why does Capote include what Dr. Jones would have testified to but did not?  (p. 294).  What is Capote’s attitude toward Perry?  Does Capote’s depiction of Perry alter the way you judge his actions?  What does this novel tell you about the crime that would not have been included in a typical newspaper article account of it?  Is it a worthwhile endeavor to have such a detailed account of this crime?  In other words, what does this novel contribute to your understanding of the crime and to the way you judge the perpetrators?

Capote played a significant role in the events in the novel, yet he doesn’t appear in it.  Should he have included himself?

VI. LAW, JUSTICE, AND MORALITY

A. LAW AND MORALITY IN SOPHOCLES’S ANTIGONE

Class 24: Sophocles’s Antigone

Readings

Sophocles, Antigone (441 B.C.)

Susan W. Tiefenbrun, On Civil Disobedience, Jurisprudence, Feminism and the Law in the
    Antigones of Sophocles and Anouilh
11 Cardozo Stud. L. & Literature 35 (1999)

Theodore Ziolkowski, The Mirror of Justice: Literary Reflections of Legal
   Crisis (1997)

Overview

Sophocles’ great play, Antigone, explores the tension between law and morality.  Is it acceptable to disobey an unjust law?  Is Creon in the wrong?  Antigone?  Both?  Neither?  How is Creon like Antigone?  Does Antigone’s gender influence Creon’s reaction to her?

 B. JUSTICE VENGEANCE IN KLEIST’S MICHAEL KOHLHAAS

Class 25: Kleist’s Michael Kohlhaas

Readings

Heinrich von Kleist, Michael Kohlhaas (1810)

Richard Sterne, Reconciliation and Alienation in Kleist’s “Michael Kohlhaas”
    and Doctorow’s Ragtime
12 Legal Studies Forum 4 (1988)

Overview

Heinrich von Kleist (1777-1811), a Prussian writer, wrote Michael Kohlhaas in 1810.  The novella was greatly admired by Franz Kafka.  To what extent is Kohlhaas similar to Antigone?  To what extent is he different?  Are Kohlhaas’s actions justified?  Is the individual ever justified in taking matters into his or her own hands and elevating his sense of morality above the law of the state?

RECOMMENDED FURTHER READINGS

I. INTRODUCTION

Class 1: Introduction

General Works on Law & Literature

Maria Aristodemou, Law and Literature: Journeys from Here to Eternity (2001)

Guyora Binder & Robert Weisberg, Literary Criticisms of Law (2000)

Irving Browne, Law and Lawyers in Literature (1883)

Gregg D. Crane, Race, Citizenship, and Law in American Literature (2002)

Kieran Dolin, Fiction and the Law: Legal Discourses in Victorian and Modernist
Literature (1999)

Robert A. Ferguson, Law and Letters in American Culture (1984)

Richard Firth Green, Crisis of Truth: Literature and Law in Ricardian England (2002)

Thomas C. Grey, The Wallace Stevens Case: Law and the Practice of Poetry (1991)

Jeffrey C. Kinkley, Chinese Justice, the Fiction: Law and Literature in Modern
China (2000)

Barry R. Schaller, A Vision of American Law : Judging Law, Literature,
and the Stories We Tell (1997)

Erica Sheen & Lorna Hutson (editors), Literature, Politics, and Law in Renaissance
England (2005)

Brook Thomas, Cross-Examinations of Law and Literature: Cooper, Hawthorne,
Stowe & Melville (1987)

Richard Weisberg, Poethics And Other Strategies of Law and Literature (1992)

Richard Weisberg, The Failure of the Word (1984)

James Boyd White, The Legal Imagination (1973)

James Boyd White, When Words Lose Their Meaning (1984)

James Boyd White, Justice as Translation (1990)

James Boyd White, Heracles’ Bow (1985)

Melanie Williams, Empty Justice: One Hundred years of Law, Literature and
Philosophy (2002)

Theodore Ziolkowski, The Mirror of Justice: Literary Reflections of Legal
Crisis (1997)

Law and Popular Culture

Maxwell H. Bloomfield, The Supreme Court in American Popular Culture, 4 J. of Am. Culture
71 (1981)

Maxwell H. Bloomfield, The Warren Court in American Fiction, J. of S. Ct. Hist. 86 (1991)

Anthony Chase, Toward a Legal Theory of Popular Culture, 1986 Wisc. L. Rev. 527 (1986)

Christine Alice Corcos, Prosecutors, Prejudices, and Justice: Observations on Presuming Innocence
   in Popular Culture and Law, 34 U. Toledo L. Rev. 793 (2003)

Lawrence M. Friedman, Law, Lawyers, and Popular Culture, 98 Yale L.J. 1579 (1989)

Lawrence M. Friedman & Issachar Rosen-Zvi, Illegal Fictions: Mystery Novels and the Popular
   Image of Crime, 48 UCLA L. Rev. 1411 (2001)

Jennifer Jaff, Law and Lawyer in Pop Music: A Reason for Self-Reflection, 40 U. Miami L.
Rev. 659 (1986)

Robert M. Jarvis & Paul R. Joseph, Prime Time Law: Fictional Television as Legal
Narrative (1998)

Carrie Menkel-Meadow, Can They Do That? Legal Ethics in Popular Culture: Of Characters and Acts,
48 UCLA L. Rev. 1305 (2001)

Steve Redman, Unpopular Cultures: The Birth of Law and Popular Culture (1995)

Richard K. Sherwin, When Law Goes Pop (2000)

Jessica Silbey, Patterns of Courtroom Justice, 28 J. L. & Soc’y 97 (2001)

Commentary on the Law and Literature Movement

Jane B. Baron, Law, Literature, and the Problems of Interdisciplinarity, 108 Yale L.J. 1059 (1999)

Milner Ball, The Future of Law and Literature: Convocations and Conversations, 10 Cardozo Stud.
L. & Literature 107 (1998)

Richard Epstein, Does Literature Work as Social Science: The Case of George Orwell,
73U Colo. L. Rev. 987(2002)

Daniel J. Kornstein, A Practicing Lawyer Looks Back on Law and Literature, 10 Cardozo Stud. L. &
Literature 117 (1998)

Sanford Levinson, Some (Brief) Reflections About Law and Literature, 10 Cardozo Stud. L. &
Literature 121 (1998)

Gary Minda, Law and Literature at Century’s End, 9 Cardozo Stud. L. & Literature 245 (1997)

Sanford Levinson, Law as Literature, 60 Tex. L. Rev. 373 (1982)

Symposium, Law and Literature, 60 Tex. L. Rev. (1982)

Kenji Yoshio, The City and the Poet, 114 Yale L.J. 1835 (2005)

Robin L. West, Adjudication is Not Interpretation: Some Reservations about the Law-as-Literature
   Movement, 54 Tenn. L. Rev. 203 (1986)

Robin L. West, Communities, Texts, and Law: Reflections on the Law and Literature Movement,
1 Yale J.L. & Human. 129 (1988)

 

Bibliographies and Works About the Law and Literature Canon

Law In Literature: An Annotated Bibliography of Law-Related Works
(Elizabeth Villiers Gemmette ed.1995)

Davenport, A Bibliography: Readings in Legal Literature, 41 ABA. J. 939 (1955)

Davenport, Readings in Legal Literature: A Bibliographical Supplement, 43 ABA. J. 813 (1957)

Judith Resnik, Constructing the Canon, 2 Yale J.L. & Human. 221 (1990)

Richard Weisberg & Kretschman, Wigmore’s “Legal Novels” Expanded: A Collaborative Effort,
7 Maryland Legal Forum 94 (1977)

Richard H. Weisberg, Wigmore’s “Legal Novels” Revisited: New Resources for the Expansive
   Lawyer, 71 Nw. U. L. Rev. 17 (1976)

John H. Wigmore, A List of One Hundred Legal Novels, 17 Ill. L. Rev. 26 (1922)

 

Anthologies & Collections: Fiction

The World of Law: The Law in Literature (Ephraim London ed. 1960 )

The World of Law: The Law as Literature (Ephraim London ed. 1960 )

Law In Literature: Legal Themes in Drama (Elizabeth Villiers Gemmette ed. 1995)

Law In Literature: Legal Themes in Novellas (Elizabeth Villiers Gemmette ed. 1996)

Law In Literature: Legal Themes in Short Stories (Elizabeth Villiers Gemmette ed.2000)

Trial and Error: An Oxford Anthology of Legal Stories
(Fred R. Shapiro & Jane Garry eds. 1998)

Legal Fictions: Lawyers and the Law (Jay Wishingrad ed. 1992)

 

Anthologies & Collections: Non-Fiction

Interpreting Law and Literature: A Hermeneutic Reader (Sanford Levinson and
Seven Mailloux, eds., 1988)

Law and Literature (Michael Freeman & Andrew Lewis eds. 1999)

Law and Literature (Patrick Hanafin, Adam Gearey, & Joseph Brooker eds. 2004)

Law and Literature: Text and Theory (Lenora Ledwon ed. 1996)

Law and Literature Perspectives (Bruce L. Rockwood ed. 1996)

Law’s Stories (Peter Brooks & Paul Gewirtz eds. 1996)

William R. Bishin & Christopher D. Stone, Law, Language and Ethics (1972)

Law and American Literature: A Collection of Essays (Carl S. Smith et al. ed., 1983)

II. THE RULE OF LAW vs. EQUITY

Classes 2 & 3: Melville

Commentary on Billy Budd

Robert Cover, Of Creon and Captain Vere, in Justice Accused (1975)

Jami K. Elison, The Prosecution of Billy Budd (Ultra Vires of Positive Law), 35 Willamette L.
Rev. 57 (1999)

C.B. Ives, Billy Budd and the Articles of War, 34 American Literature 31 (1962)

Alfred S. Konefsky, The Accidental Legal Historian: Herman Melville and the History of American
Law, 52 Buff. L. Rev. 1179 (2005)

Judith Schenck Koffler, The Feminine Presence in Billy Budd,1 Cardozo Studies in
L. & Literature 1 (1989)

Robert P. Lawry, Justice in Billy Budd, in Law and Literature Perspectives
(Bruce L. Rockwood ed. 1996)

Laura Marvel (editor), Readings on Billy Budd (2003)

James McBride, Revisiting a Seminal Text of the Law and Literature Movement:
   A Girardian Reading of Herman Melville’s Billy Budd, Sailor, 3 Margins 285 (2003)

Richard A. Posner, Law and Literature 165-173 (2d ed. 1998)

The Honorable Juan Ramirez, Jr., Amy D. Ronner, Voiceless Billy Budd: Melville’s
    Tribute to the Sixth Amendment, 41 Cal. W. L. Rev. 103 (2004)

Charles A. Reich, The Tragedy of Justice in Billy Budd, 56 Yale Rev. 368 (1967).

Thane Rosenbaum, Body and Soul Under the Law, and the Response from Law and
   Literature in Bartleby, the Scrivener and Billy  Budd, Sailor, 26 Cardozo L. Rev. 2425 (2005)

Kevin W. Saunders, Billy Budd and the Federal Sentencing Mandates,22 Oklahoma City U.
L. Rev. 211 (1997)

Daniel J. Solove, Melville’s Billy Budd and Security in Times of Crisis,
26 Cardozo L. Rev. 2443 (2005)

Symposium, Billy Budd,1 Cardozo Studies in L. &  Literature 1 (1989)

Brook Thomas, Billy Budd and the Untold Story of the Law,1 Cardozo Studies in
L. & Literature 49 (1989)

Richard Weisberg, How Judges Speak: Some Lessons on Adjudication in Billy Budd,
Sailor With an Application to Justice Rehnquist, 57 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 1 (1982)

Richard Weisberg, The Failure of the Word (1984)

Richard Weisberg, Poethics And Other Strategies of Law and Literature 104-16 (1992)

Robin West, The Feminine Silence: A Response to Professor Koffler, 1 Cardozo Studies in
L. & Literature 15 (1989)

Steven L. Winter, Melville, Slavery, and the Failure of the Judicial Process,
26 Cardozo L. Rev. 2471 (2005)

Donald Yannella (editor) New Essays on Billy Budd(2002)

Edwin M. Yoder, Jr., Fated Boy: Billy Budd and the Laws of War, 31 J. Maritime L. &
Commerce 615 (2000)

Edwin M. Yoder, Jr., Melville’s Billy Budd and the Trials of Captain Vere, 45 St. Louis U.
L.J. 1109 (2001)

 

General Commentary on Melville and the Law

Robert Batey, Literature in a Criminal Law Course: Aeschylus, Burgess, Oates, Camus, Poe,
   and Melville, 22 Legal Studies Forum 45 (1998)

Andrew Delbanco, Melville: His World and Work (2005)

Alfred S. Konefsky, The Accidental Legal Historian: Herman Melville and the History of American
Law, 52 Buff. L. Rev. 1179 (2005)

Michael Rogin, Subversive Genealogy: The Politics and Art of Herman Melville (1983)

Brook Thomas, Cross-Examinations of Law and Literature: Cooper, Hawthorne,
Stow & Melville (1987)

Susan Weiner, Law in Art: Melville’s Major Fiction and Nineteenth-Century American
Law (1992)

 

Other Works by Melville with Legal and Political Themes

Herman Melville, Bartleby the Scrivener

Thane Rosenbaum, Body and Soul Under the Law, and the Response from Law and Literature
   in Bartleby, the Scrivener and Billy Budd, Sailor, 26 Cardozo L. Rev. 2425 (2005)

Robin West, Invisible Victims: A Comparison of Susan Glaspell’s Jury of Her Peers, and
   Herman Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener, 8 Cardozo Stud. L. & Literature 203 (1996)

Herman Melville, Benito Cereno

Marilyn R. Walter, Trafficking in Humans: Now and in Herman Melville’s “Benito Cereno”,
12 William & Mary J. of Women & the Law (2005)

Class 4: Fuller’s Speluncean Explorers

Commentary on The Case of the Speluncean Explorers

Anthony D’Amato, The Speluncean Explorers – Further Proceedings, 32 Stan. L. Rev. 467 (1980).

William Eskridge, The Case of the Speluncean Explorers: Twentieth-Century Statutory
   Interpretation in a Nutshell, 61 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 1731 (1993)

Symposium, The Case of the Speluncean Explorers: Contemporary Proceedings, 61 Geo.
Wash. L. Rev. (Aug. 1993)

Symposium, The Case of the Speluncean Explorers: A Fiftieth Anniversary Symposium,
112 Harv. L. Rev. (June 1999)

Class 5: Glaspell

Commentary on A Jury of Her Peers

Marina A. Angel, Classical Greek Influences on an American Feminist:  Susan Glaspell’s Debt to
  Aristophanes, 52 Syracuse L. Rev. 81 (2002)

Marina Angel, Criminal Law and Women: Giving the Abused Woman Who Kills a Jury of Her Peers
  Who Appreciate Trifles, 33 Am. Crim. L. Rev. 229 (1996)

Marina Angel, Susan Glaspell’s Trifles and A Jury of Her Peers: Woman Abuse in a Literary and
   Legal Context, 45 Buff. L. Rev. 779 (1997)

Patricia L. Bryan, Stories in Fiction and in Fact: Susan Glaspell’s A Jury of Her Peers and the 1901
   Murder Trial of Margaret Hossack, 49 Stan. L. Rev. 1293 (1997)

Toni M. Massaro, Peremptories or Peers?—Rethinking Sixth Amendment Doctrine, Images and
   Procedures, 64 N.C. L. Rev. 501 (1986)

Martha Minow, Words and the Door to the Land of Change: Law, Language, and Family Violence,
43 Vand. L. Rev. 1665 (1990)

Richard A. Posner, Law and Literature 121-26 (2d ed. 1998)

Robin West, Invisible Victims: A Comparison of Susan Glaspell’s Jury of Her Peers, and Herman
   Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener, 8 Cardozo Stud. L. & Literature 203 (1996)

 

Non-Fiction With Similar Themes

Elizabeth Villiers Gemmette, Filling in the Silence: Domestic Violence, Literature and Law,
32 Loy. U. Chi. L.J. 91 (2000)

Classes 6 & 7: Shakespeare

Commentary on The Merchant of Venice

Anita L. Allen & Michael R. Seidl, Cross-Cultural Commerce in Shakespeare’s The Merchant
of Venice, 10 Am. U. J. Int’l L. & Pol’y 837 (1995)

M. Andrews, Law versus Equity in The Merchant of Venice (1965)

Alice N. Benston, Portia, the Law, and the Tripartite Structure of the Merchant of Venice, in
The Merchant of Venice: Critical Essays 163 (1991)

Thomas C. Bilello, Accomplished With What She Lacks: Law, Equity, and Portia’s Con,
   16 Law & Literature 11 (2004)

Daniela Carpi, Law, Discretion, Equity in The Merchant of Venice and Measure for Measure,
26 Cardozo L. Rev. 2317 (2005)

Jane M. Cohen, Feminism and Adaptive Heroism: The Paradigm of Portia as a Means of
   Introduction, 25 Tulsa L.J. 657 (1990)

Christopher A. Colmo, Law and Love in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, 26 Okla. City U.
L. Rev. 307 (2001)

Erin A. Cook, Shining Lights at the Bar: Shakespeare’s Portia as a Model for Female Attorneys,
30 Cumberland L. Rev. 517 (2000)

Christine Alice Corcos, Portia and Her Partners in Popular Culture: A Bibliography, 22 Legal
Studies Forum 269 (1998)

Christine Alice Corcos, Portia Goes to Parliament: Women and their Admission to Membership
   in the English Legal Profession, 75 Denver L. Rev. 307 (1998)

John T. Doyle, Shakespeare’s Law: The Case of Shylock(1886)

Jonathan M. Hyman & Lela P. Love, If Portia Were a Mediator: An Inquiry Into Justice in
   Mediation, 9 Clinical L. Rev. 157 (2002)

Ken Masugi, Race, The Rule of Law, and The Merchant of Venice, 11 Notre Dame J. L. Ethics &
Pub. Pol’y 197 (1997)

Carrie Menkel-Meadow, Portia Redux: Another Look at Gender, Feminism, and Legal Ethics,
2 Va. J. Soc. Pol’y & L. 75 (1995)

Trisha Olson, Pausing Upon Portia, 19 J.L. & Religion 299 (2004)

Richard A. Posner, Law and Literature (2d ed. 1998)

Richard Weisberg, The Failure of the Word (1984)

Richard Weisberg, Poethics And Other Strategies of Law and Literature 94-104 (1992)

Symposium, The Merchant of Venice, 5 Cardozo Stud. L. & Lit. 1 (1993)

Michael Jay Wilson, A View of Justice in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure and Merchant of
Venice, 70 Notre Dame L. Rev. 695 (1995)

Kenji Yoshino, The Lawyer of Belmont, 9 Yale J. L. & Humanities 183 (1997)

Theodore Ziolkowski, The Mirror of Justice: Literary Reflections of Legal Crisis (1997)

 

General Commentary on Shakespeare and the Law

George Anastaplo, Law & Literature and Shakespeare: Explorations, 26 Okla. City. U.
L. Rev. 1 (2001)

George Anastaplo, Prudence and Mortality in Shakespeare’s Tragedies, 40 U. Pitt. L.
Rev. 730 (1979)

Sir Dunbar Plunket Barton, Links Between Shakespeare and the Law (1929)

Ronald Berman, Shakespeare and the Law, 18 Shakespeare Quarterly 141 (1967)

James D.A. Boyle, The Search for an Author: Shakespeare and the Framers,
37 American U. L. Rev. 625 (1988)

Clarence Marion Brune, Shakespeare’s Use of Legal Terms (1914)

Lord Campbell, Shakespeare’s Legal Acquirements (1859)

Paul S. Clarkson & Clyde T. Warren, The Law of Property in Shakespeare and
the Elizabethan Drama (1942)

Cushman Kellogg Davis, The Law in Shakespeare (1999)

John Denvir, William Shakespeare and the Jurisprudence of Comedy, 39 Stan. L. Rev. 825 (1987)

William Domnarski, Shakespeare in the Law, 67 Conn. B.J. 317 (1993)

John D. Euce, Shakespeare and the Legal Process: Four Essays, 61 Va. L. Rev. 390 (1975)

Amy L. Gibson, Using Circumstantial Evidence to Discover Shakespeare: The Importance of
   Good Legal Analysis, 72 Tenn. L. Rev. 309 (2004)

Sir George Greenwood, Shakespeare’s Law (1920)

Donna B. Hamilton, Shakespeare and the Politics of Protestant England(1992)

A.G. Harmon, Eternal Bonds, True Contracts: Law and Nature in Shakespeare’s
Problem Plays (2004)

William M. Hawley, Shakespearean Tragedy and the Common Law (1998)

In Re Shakespeare: The Authority of Shakespeare on Trial, 37 Am. U. L. Rev. 609 (1988)

George W. Keeton, Shakespeare and His Legal Problems (1930)

George W. Keeton, Shakespeare’s Legal and Political Background (1967)

Nicholas W. Knight, Patrimony and Shakespeare’s Daughters, 2 ALSA Forum 21 (1977)

Nicholas W. Knight, Shakespeare’s Hidden Life: Shakespeare at the Law 1585-1595 (1973).

Daniel Kornstein, Kill All the Lawyers? Shakespeare’s Legal Appeal (1994)

Daniel J. Kornstein, Shakespeare: The Unacknowledged Legislator, 66 JAN N.Y. St. B.J. 50 (1994)

The Law in Shakespeare (Constance Jordan & Karen Cunningham eds. 2006)

Rebecca Lemon, Treason by Words: Literature, Law, and Rebellion in Shakespeare’s
England (2006)

Leonard J. Long, The Life and Death of Law: Law’s Role as the Other Bastard in William
   Shakespeare’s The Life and Death of King John, 18 QLR 1 (1998)

Desmond Manderson, In the Tout Court of Shakespeare: Interdisciplinary Pedagogy in Law,
54 J. Legal Educ. 283 (2004)

Theodor Meron, Crimes and Accountability in Shakespeare, 92 Am. J. Int’l L. 1 (1998)

Appleton Morgan, Shakespeare in Fact and in Criticism ch. 6 (1888)

M.D.H. Parker, The Slave of Life: A Study of Shakespeare and the Idea of Justice (1955)

O. Hood Phillips, Shakespeare and the Lawyers (1972)

Michael L. Richmond, Can Shakespeare Make You a Partner?, 20 St. Mary’s L.J. 885 (1989)

Charles Ross, Elizabethan Literature and the Law of Fraudulent Conveyance: Sidney,
Spenser, and Shakespeare (2003)

William Lowes Rushton, Shakespeare’s Legal Maxims (1907)

B.J. Sokol & Mary Sokol, Shakespeare, Law, and Marriage (2006)

John Paul Stevens, The Shakespeare Canon of Statutory Interpretation,
140 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1373 (1992)

In Re Shakespeare: The Authority of Shakespeare on Trial, 37 Am. U. L. Rev. 609 (1988)

Symposium, Shakespeare and the Law,  26 Okla. City U. L. Rev. 1-470 (2001)

Ian Ward, Shakespeare and the Legal Imagination (1999)

Richard H. Weisberg, Confiscated Jewish Property in Vichy, France: An Attempt to Understand
   Through Shakespeare, 20 Cardozo L. Rev. 591 (1998)

Edward J. White, Commentaries on the Law in Shakespeare (2002)

Andrew Zurcher, Shakespeare and the Law (2006)

 

Other Works by Shakespeare with Legal Themes

William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure

Robert Batey, Kenneth Starr–Among Others–Should Have (Re)Read Measure for
   Measure, 26 Oklahoma City U. L. Rev. 261 (2001)

Daniela Carpi, Law, Discretion, Equity in The Merchant of Venice and Measure for Measure,
26 Cardozo L. Rev. 2317 (2005)

John Frow, Measure for Measure: A Response to Steven Mailloux, 9 Cardozo Stud. L. &
Literature 11 (1997)

David J. Gless, Measure for Measure, the Law, and the Convent (1979)

Louise Halper, Measure for Measure: Law, Prerogative, Subversion, 13 Cardozo Stud. L. &
Literature 221 (2001)

Daniel J. Kornstein, Comment on Prof. Halper’s Reading of Measure for Measure, 13 Cardozo
Stud. L. & Literature 265 (2001)

Amy Ross, Vienna Then and Now: The Impact of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure on
   the Twenty-First Century Legal Profession, 46 S.D. L. Rev. 781 (2001)

Margaret Scott, “Our City’s Institutions”: Some Further Reflections on the Marriage Contracts
  in Measure for Measure, 49 English Legal History 790 (1982)

Dan Schiff & Wilbur Dunkel, Law and Equity in Measure for Measure,
13 Shakespeare Q. 275 (1962)

William Shakespeare, Othello

William Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale

William Shakespeare, King Lear

Eamon Halpin, “In His Little World of Man”: Lear’s Eclipse of the Cosmos in Shakespeare’s
King Lear, 26 Oklahoma City U. L. Rev. 355 (2001)

Paul Kahn, Law and Love: The Trials of King Lear (2000)

William M. Hawley, King Lear and the Legality of Madness, in Shakespearean Tragedy
and the Common Law 105 (1998)

Terry Reilly, King Lear: The Kentish Forest and the Problem of Thirds, 26 Oklahoma City
U. L. Rev. 379 (2001)

Paul M. Shupack, Natural Justice and King Lear, 9 Cardozo Studies in L. & Lit. 67 (1997)

William Shakespeare, Hamlet

Norman J. Finkel, Achilles Fuming, Odysseus Stewing, and Hamlet Brooding: On the Story of
   the Murder/Manslaughter Distinction, 74 Neb. L. Rev. 742 (1995)

William M. Hawley, Hamlet and the Wager of Law, in Shakespearean Tragedy
and the Common Law (1998)

Prakash Mehta, An Essay on Hamlet: Emblems of Truth in Law and Literature,
83 Geo. L.J. 165 (1994)

Steven M. Oxenhandler, The Lady Doth Protest Too Much Methinks: The Use of Figurative
   Language from Shakespeare’s Hamlet in American Case Law, 23 Hamline L.
Rev. 370 (2000)

William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

William Shakespeare, Henry V

William Shakespeare, Henry VI

Film

The Merchant of Venice (2004) (starring Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons, Joseph Fiennes, and Lynn Collins)

III. INTERPRETATION

Classes 8 & 9: Kafka

Commentary on The Trial

Jacques Derrida, Before the Law, in Acts of Literature (Derek Attridge, ed. 1992)

Heidi E. Faletti, The Workings of Law in Kafka’s Der Prozess and Boll’s Die Verlorene Der
Katharina Blum, 6 ALSA Forum 148 (1982)

Scott Finet, Franz Kafka’s Trial as Symbol in Judicial Opinions, 12 Legal Studies Forum, 23 (1988)

Adrian Jaffe, The Process of Kafka’s Trial (1967)

Judge Alex Kozinski & Alexander Volokh, The Appeal, 103 Mich. L. Rev. 1391 (2005)

J.M. Lindsay, Kohlhaas and K.: Two Men in Search of Justice, 13 German Life & Letters 190 (1959)

Kevin H. Marino, Toward a More Responsible Profession: Some Remarks on Kafka’s The Trial and
   the Self, 14 Seton Hall L. Rev. 110 (1983)

Richard A. Posner, The Ethical Significance of Free Choice: A Reply to Professor West
99 Harv. L. R. 1431 (1986).

Parker B. Potter, Jr., Ordeal by Trial: Judicial References to the Nightmare World of Franz Kafka,
3 Pierce L. Rev. 195, 195-96 (2005)

Martha Robinson, The Law of the State in Kafka’s The Trial, 6 ALSA Forum, 127 (1982)

Daniel J. Solove, Privacy and Power: Computer Databases and Metaphors for Information Privacy,
53 Stan. L. Rev. 1393 (2001)

Daniel J. Solove, The Digital Person: Technology and Privacy in the Information
Age (2004)

Frank Stringellow, Kafka’s Trial: Between the Republic and Psychoanalysis, 7 Cardozo
Stud. in L. & Literature 173 (1995)

Henry Sussman, The Trial: Kafka’s Unholy Trinity (1993)

Robin West, Submission, Choice, and Ethics: A Rejoinder to Judge Posner,
99 Harv. L. Rev. 1449 (1986)

Robin West, Authority, Autonomy, and Choice: The Role of Consent in the Moral and Political
   Visions of Franz Kafka and Richard Posner, 99 Harv. L. Rev. 384 (1985)

Theodore Ziolkowski, The Mirror of Justice: Literary Reflections of Legal
Crisis (1997)

 

General Commentary on Kafka and the Law

Robert Batey, Da Vinci Versus Kafka: Looking for Answers, 8 N.Y. City L. Rev. 319 (2005)

Martha J. Dragich, Justice Blackmun, Franz Kafka, and Capital Punishment, 63 Mo. L.
Rev. 853  (1998)

Igor Grazin, Kafka’s Myth of Law in the Context of the Legal Irrationality Inspired by the Russian
   Post-Communist Marketplace, 8 MSU DCL J. Int’l L. 335 (1999)

Lida Kirchberger, Franz Kafka’s Use of Law in Fiction (1986)

Anthony W. Krause, Asssessing Mr. Samsa’s Employee Rights: Kafka and the Art of the Human
   Resource Nightmare, 15 Lab. Law 309 (1999)

Douglas E. Litowitz, Franz Kafka’s Outsider Jurisprudence, 27 Law & Soc. Inquiry 103 (2002)

Richard A. Posner, Law and Literature (2d ed. 1998)

Richard A. Posner, The Ethical Significance of Free Choice: A Reply to Professor West
99 Harv. L. R. 1431 (1986)

Parker B. Potter, Jr., Ordeal by Trial: Judicial References to the Nightmare World of Franz Kafka,
3 Pierce L. Rev. 195, 195-96 (2005)

Robin West, Submission, Choice, and Ethics: A Rejoinder to Judge Posner,
99 Harv. L. Rev. 1449 (1986)

Robin West, Authority, Autonomy, and Choice: The Role of Consent in the Moral and Political
   Visions of Franz Kafka and Richard Posner, 99 Harv. L. Rev. 384 (1985)

Samuel Wolff & Kenneth Rivkin, The Legal Education of Franz Kafka, 22 Columbia-VLA J. Law &
the Arts 407 (1998)

Class 10: Power & Limits of Words & Rules

Fiction

Italo Calvino, Reading a Wave, in Mr. Palomar (1983)

 

Commentary on Rhetoric

Plato, Gorgias

Robert A. Ferguson, The Judicial Opinion as Literary Genre, 2 Yale J.L. & Human. 201 (1990)

Jose Oretga Y Gasset, The Dehumanization of Art

 

Commentary on Emotion and Passion in Legal Decisionmaking

Lynne N. Henderson, Legality and Empathy, 85 Mich. L. Rev. 1574 (1987)

Toni M. Massaro, Empathy, Legal Storytelling, and the Rule of Law: New Worlds, Old Wounds?,
87 Mich. L. Rev. 2099 (1989)

Martha C. Nussbaum, Rational Emotions, in Literature and Legal Problem Solving:
Law and Literature as Ethical Discourse (Paul J. Heald ed. 1998).

Martha C. Nussbaum, Hiding from Humanity: Disgust, Shame, and the Law (2004)

Martha C. Nussbaum, Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions (2001)

 

Commentary on Legal Interpretation

J.M. Balkin, Deconstructive Practice and Legal Theory, 96 Yale L.J. 743 (1987)

J.M. Balkin, Tradition, Betrayal, and the Politics of Deconstruction, 11 Cardozo L. Rev. 1613 (1990)

J.M. Balkin, Understanding Legal Understanding: The Legal Subject and the Problem of Legal
   Coherence, 103 Yale L.J. 105 (1993)

J.M. Balkin, Ideological Drift and the Struggle Over Meaning, 25 Conn. L. Rev. 869 (1993)

Charles Black, Mr. Justice Black, the Supreme Court, and the Bill of Rights

Philip Bobbitt, Constitutional Interpretation (1992)

Philip Bobbitt, Constitutional Fate (1982)

Benjamin Cardozo, The Paradoxes of Legal Science

Benjamin Cardozo, The Nature of the Judicial Process (1921)

Robert Cover, The Violence of the Word, 95 Yale L.J. 1601 (1986)

Mark Kelman, Intepretive Construction in the Substantive Criminal Law, 33 Stan. L. Rev. 591 (1981)

Karl N. Llewellyn, What Law is About, in The Bramble Bush (1930)

Stanley Fish, Doing What Comes Naturally (1989)

Stanley Fish, Is There a Text in This Class? (1980)

Stanley Fish, There is No Such Thing as Free Speech (1994)

Jerome Frank, Law and the Modern Mind

Paul Gewirtz, On “I Know It When I See It,” 105 Yale L.J. 1023 (1996)

Joseph Goldstein, The Intelligible Constitution

Mark Tushnet, Following the Rules Laid Down: A Critique of Interpretivism and Neutral Principles,
96 Harv. L. Rev. 781 (1983)

Richard Weisberg, The Failure of the Word (1984)

Richard Weisberg, Vichy Law and the Holocaust in France (1996)

Class 11: Rhetoric & Candor

Commentary on Justice Benjamin Cardozo

Curtis Bridgeman, Allegheny College Revisited: Cardozo, Consideration, and Formalism in Context,
39 U. C. Davis L. Rev. 149 (2005)

Brady Coleman, Lord Denning and Justice Cardozo: The Judge as Poet Philosopher,
32 Rutgers L.J. 485 (2001)

Lawrence A. Cunningham, Cardozo and Posner: A Study in Contracts, 36 Wm. & Mary
L. Rev. 1379 (1995)

Andrew L. Kaufman, Benjamin Cardozo as Paradigmatic Tort Lawmaker,
49 DePaul L. Rev. 281 (1999)

William H. Manz, Palsgraf: Cardozo’s Urban Legend?, 107 Dick. L. Rev. 785 (2003)

Gary T. Schwartz, Cardozo as Tort Lawmaker, 49 DePaul L. Rev. 305 (1999)

Dan Simon, The Double Consciousness of Judging: The Problematic Legacy of Cardozo,
79 Or. L. Rev. 1033 (2000)

Mike Townsend, Cardozo’s Allegheny College Opinion: A Case Study in Law as an Art,
33 Hous. L. Rev. 1103 (1996)

Richard H. Weisberg, A Response on Cardozo to Professors Kaufman and Schwartz,
50 DePaul L. Rev. 535 (2000)

IV. NORMS AND THE LAW

Class 12: Garcia Marques

Commentary on Chronicle of a Death Foretold

Rosanna Cavallaro, Solution to Dissolution: Detective Fiction from Wilkie Collins to
   Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 15 Tex. J. Women & L. 1 (2005)

Ruben Pelayo, Gabriel Garcia Marquez: A Critical Companion (2001)

 

General Commentary on Garcia Marquez

Gloria Jeanne Bodtorf Clark, A Synergy of Styles: Art and Artifact in Gabriel Garcia
Marquez (1999)

Gene H. Bell-Villada, Garcia Marquez: The Man and His Work (1990)

Hannelore Hahn, The Influence of Franz Kafka on Three Novels by Gabriel Garcia
Marquez (1993)

Modern Critical Views: Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Harold Bloom ed. 1999)

Ruben Pelayo, Gabriel Garcia Marquez: A Critical Companion (2001)

Isabel Rodriguez Vergara, Haunting Demons: Critical Essays on the Works of Gabriel
Garcia Marquez (1998)

 

Other Works by Garcia Marquez with Legal and Political Themes

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude (1970)

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera (1988)

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, The Autumn of the Patriarch (1976)

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, The General in his Labyrinth (1990)

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Collected Stories (1984)

 

Fiction: Works about the Power of Social Norms

Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (1959)

Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter (1850)

 

Non-Fiction: Social Norms

Robert Ellickson, Order Without Law (1991)

Lawrence Lessig, The Regulation of Social Meaning, 62 U. Chi. L. Rev. 943 (1995)

Richard McAdams, Cooperation and Conflict: The Economics of Group Status Production
   and Race Discrimination, 108 Harv. L. Rev. 1003 (1997)

Richard McAdams, The Origin, Development, and Regulation of Norms, 96 Mich. L. Rev. 338 (1997)

Cass Sunstein, Social Norms and Social Roles, 96 Colum. L. Rev. 903 (1996)

 

Film: Multiplicity of Narratives and Perspectives

Rashomon (1950) (directed by Akira Kurosawa)

Orit Kamir, Judgment by Film: Socio-Legal Functions of Rashomon, 12 Yale J.L. &
Human. 39 (2000)

Class 13: The Lottery, Omelas, and Custom

Fiction: Works about Allocating Scarce Resources

Jorge Luis Borges, The Lottery of Babylon

Albert Camus, The Plague (1948)

 

Non-Fiction: Works about Allocating Scarce Resources

Guido Calabresi & Philip Bobbitt, Tragic Choices (1978)

 

Fiction: Works about Political Dystopias

Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale (1986)

Shira Pavis Minton, Hawthorne and the Handmaid: An Examination of the Law’s Use as a
   Tool of Oppression, 13 Wis. Women’s L.J. 45 (1998)

Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (1932)

George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949)

John J. Bonsignore, George Orwell—A Political Assessment, 8 ALSA Forum 422 (1984)

Richard A. Posner, Orwell versus Huxley: Economics, Technology, Privacy, and Satire,
24 Phil. & Literature 1 (2000)

Ransford C. Pyle, Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and Law, 8 ALSA Forum 167 (1984)

Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (1989)

Daniel J. Solove, Privacy and Power: Computer Databases and Metaphors for Information
   Privacy, 53 Stan. L. Rev. 1393 (2001)

Daniel J. Solove, The Digital Person: Technology and Privacy in the Information
Age (2004)

George Orwell, Animal Farm (1946)

 

Fiction: Works about Change, Custom, and Norms

Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (1959)

Class 14: Morrison 

Other Works by Morrison with Legal and Political Themes

Toni Morrison, Beloved (1987)

Toni Morrison, Sula (1973)

Toni Morrison, Jazz (1992)

Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon (1977)

Toni Morrison, Tar Baby (1981)

 

General Commentary on Morrison

Patrick Bryce Bjork, The Novels of Toni Morrison: The Search for Self and Place
Within the Community (1992)

Terry Otten, The Crime of Innocence in the Fiction of Toni Morrison (1991)

 

Fiction: Works about Race, Norms, and Law

Ralph Ellison, The Invisible Man (1952)

William Faulkner, Light in August (1932)

 

Fiction: Works about Human Conduct in the Absence of the Law

William Golding, Lord of the Flies (1954)

V. JUDGMENT AND NARRATIVE

Classes 15, 16, and 17: Film – Anatomy of a Murder 

Law and Film

Ralph Berets, Changing Images of Justice in American Films, 20 Legal Studies Forum 473 (1996)

Ralph Berets, Lawyers in Film: 1996, 22 Legal Studies Forum 99 (1998)

Paul Bergman, The Movie Lawyers Guide to Redemptive Legal Practice, 48 UCLA L. Rev. 1393 (2001)

Paul Bergman &Michael Asimow, Reel Justice: The Courtroom Goes to the
Movies (1996)

David A. Black, Law in Film: Resonance and Representation (1999)

Anthony Chase, Movies on Trial : The Legal System on the Silver Screen (2002)

John Denvir, Law, Lawyers, Film, and Television, 24 Legal Studies Forum 343 (2000)

John Denvir, Legal Reelism: The Hollywood Film as Legal Text, 15 Legal Studies Forum 195 (1991)

John Denvir, Legal Reelism: Movies as Legal Texts (1996)

Steve Greenfield & Guy Osborn, Film and the Law (2001)

Jason P. Isralowitz,  Lonely Hearts and Murderers: The Fourth Amendment Through
   Hitchcock’s Lens, 24 Legal Studies Forum 99 (2000)

Stefan Machura & Peters Robson, Law and Film (2001)

Philip N. Meyer, Law Students Go to the Movies, 24 Conn. L. Rev. 893 (1992)

Guy Osborn, Borders and Boundaries: Locating the Law in Film, 28 J. L. & Soc’y 164 (2001)

David Ray Papke, Law, Cinema, and Ideology: Hollywood Legal Films of the 1950s, 48 UCLA
L. Rev. 1473 (2001)

Norman Rosenberg, Hollywood on Trials: Courts and Films, 1930-1960, 12 L. & Hist.
Rev. 341 (1994)

Norman Rosenberg, Looking for Law in All the Old Traces: The Movies of Classical Hollywood
   the Law, and the Case(s) of Film Noir, 48 UCLA L. Rev. 1443 (2001)

Ysaiah Ross, Female Lawyers in the Movies, 74 Law Institute J.28 (July 2000)

Margaret M. Russell, Race and the Dominant Gaze: Narratives of Law and Inequality in
   Popular Film, 15 Legal Studies Forum 243 (1991)

Classes 18, 19, and 20: Dostoyevsky

Commentary on The Brothers Karamazov

Mikhail Bakhitn, Problems of Dostoevksy’s Poetics  (Caryl Emerson, trans. 1984)

Saul Bellow, Where Do We Go From Here: The Future of Modern Fiction

Robert L. Belknap, The Genesis of The Brothers Karamazov (1990)

William Burnham, The Legal Context and Contributions of Dotoevsky’s Crime and
   Punishment, 100 Mich. L. Rev. 1227 (2002)

Albert Camus, The Rebel (1954)

William P. Marshall, The Other Side of Religion, 44 Hastings L.Q. 843 (1993)

Gary Rosenshield, Western Law, Russian Justice: Dostoevsky, The Jury, and
the Law (2005)

Ellis Sandoz, Political Apocalypse: A Study of Dostoevsky’s Grand
Inquisitor (1971)

J. Neville Turner, Dostoyevsky — The Trial in Brothers Karamazov, 8 U. Tasmania L.
Rev. 62 (1984)

Daniel J. Solove, Postures of Judging: An Exploration of Judicial Decisionmaking,
   9 Cardozo L. Rev. 173 (1997)

Richard Weisberg, The Failure of the Word (1984)

Commentary on Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment (1866)

Robert Batey, In Defense of Porfiry Petrovich, 26 Cardozo L. Rev. 2283 (2005)

Vera Bergelson, Crimes and Defenses of Rodion Raskolnikov, 85 Ky. L.J. 919 (1996)

William Burnham, The Legal Context and Contributions of Dostoevsky’s Crime
and Punishment (2002)

Dan E. Stigall, Prosecuting Raskolnikov: A Literary and Legal Look at “Consciousness of
   Guilt” Evidence, 2005 DEC Army Law. 54   (2005)

Richard Weisberg, The Failure of the Word (1984)

Class 21: Durrenmatt

Other Works by Durrenmatt with Legal and Political Themes

Friedrich Durrenmatt, The Pledge (1957)

Friedrich Durrenmatt, The Execution of Justice (1985)

Friedrich Durrenmatt, The Assignment (1988)

Friedrich Durrenmatt, The Judge and His Hangman(1950)

Friedrich Durrenmatt, The Physicists (1962)

Friedrich Durrenmatt, The Visit (1955)

Class 22: Narrative

Fiction: Works about the Manipulation of Narrative

William Shakespeare, Othello

Ryunosuke Akutagawa, In a Grove

Albert Camus, The Stranger (1942)

 

Non-Fiction: Works about the Trial as Narrative

Anthony G. Amsterdam & Jerome Bruner, Minding the Law (2000)

Milner S. Ball, The Play’s the Thing: An Unscientific Reflection on Courts Under the
   Rubric of Theater, 28 Stan. L. Rev. 81 (1975)

Martha Merrill Umphrey, The Dialogics of Legal Meaning: Spectacular Trials, the Unwritten Law,
   and Narratives of Criminal Responsibility, 33 Law & Soc’y Rev. 393 (1999)

Sam Schrager, The Trial Lawyer’s Art

Robert Weisberg, Proclaiming Trials as Narratives: Premises and Pretenses, in
Law’s Stories (Peter Brooks & Paul Gewirtz eds. 1996)

 

Non-Fiction: Works about Narrative, Perspective, and Framing

Jody Armour, Just Deserts: Narrative, Perspective, Choice, and Blame, 57 U. Pitt. L.
Rev. 525 (1996)

Erving Goffman, Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience (1974)

Daniel Kahneman, et al. (editors), Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and
Biases (1982)

Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky (editors), Choices, Values, and Frames (2000)

Michel de Montaigne, On Giving the Lie

Marianne Sadowski, Note, “In an Evil Hour”: Confessions, Narrative Framing, and Cultural
   Complicity in Law and Literature, 34 Conn. L. Rev. 695 (2002)

Richard K. Sherwin, Law Frames: Historical Truth and Narrative Necessity in a Criminal Case,
47 Stan. L. Rev. 39 (1994)

 

Non-Fiction: Works about Metaphor

Mark Johnson, The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason (1987)

Orin S. Kerr, The Problem of Perspective in Internet Law, 91 Geo. L.J. 357 (2003)

George Lakoff & Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (1980)

George Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal About
the Mind (1987)

George Lakoff & Mark Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its
Challenge to Western Thought (1999)

Daniel J. Solove, Privacy and Power: Computer Databases and Metaphors for Information Privacy,
53 Stan. L. Rev. 1393 (2001)

Robert L. Tsai, Fire, Metaphor and Constitutional Myth-Making, 93 Geo. L.J. 181 (2004)

Robert L. Tsai, Sacred Visions of Law, 90 Iowa L. Rev. 1095 (2005)

Steven L. Winter, A Clearing in the Forest: Law, Life, and Mind (2001)

 

Non-Fiction: Works about Storytelling

Kathryn Abrams, Hearing the Call of Stories, 79 Cal. L. Rev. 971 (1991)

Jane B. Baron, Intention, Interpretation, and Stories, 42 Duke L.J. 630 (1992)

Jane B. Baron, Resistance to Stories, 67 S. Cal. L. Rev. 255 (1994)

Jane B. Baron, The Many Promises of Storytelling in Law, 23 Rutgers L.J. 79 (1991)

Charles W. Collier, The Use and Abuse of Humanistic Theory in Law: Reexamining the
   Assumptions of Interdisciplinary Legal Scholarship, 41 Duke L.J. 191 (1991)

Robert M. Cover, Nomos and Narrative, 97 Harv. L. Rev. 4 (1983)

Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, Nomos and Narratives: Can Judges Avoid Serious Moral
   Error?, 69 Tex. L. Rev. 1929 (1991)

Richard Delgado, On Telling Stories in School: A Reply to Farber and Sherry,
46 Vand. L. Rev. 665 (1993)

Richard Delgado,  Shadowboxing: An Essay on Power, 77 Cornell L. Rev. 813 (1992)

Richard Delgado, Storytelling for Oppositionists and Others: A Plea for Narrative,
87 Mich. L. Rev. 2411 (1988)

Marc A. Fajer, Authority, Credibility, and Pre-Understanding: A Defense of Outsider
   Narratives in Legal Scholarship, 82 Geo. L.J. 1845 (1994)

Daniel A. Farber & Suzanna Sherry, Telling Stories Out of School: An Essay on Legal Narratives,
45 Stan. L. Rev. 807 (1993)

Julius Getman, Voices, 66 Tex. L. Rev. 577 (1988)

Lynne N. Henderson, Legality and Empathy, 85 Mich. L. Rev. 1574 (1987)

L.H. LaRue, Literature, Music, and the Law: West on Story and Theory: Narrative, Authority, and
   Law, 92 Mich. L. Rev. 1786 (1994)

Toni M. Massaro, Empathy, Legal Storytelling, and the Rule of Law: New Worlds, Old Wounds?,
87 Mich. L. Rev. 2099 (1989)

Richard A. Matasar, Storytelling and Legal Scholarship, 68 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 353 (1992)

Dennis M. Patterson, Law’s Pragmatism: Law as Practice and Narrative, 76 Va. L. Rev. 937 (1990)

Kim Lane Scheppele, Foreword: Telling Stories, 87 Mich. L. Rev. 2073 (1989)

Richard K. Sherwin, A Matter of Voice and Plot: Belief and Suspicion in Legal Storytelling,
87 Mich. L. Rev. 543 (1988)

Symposium, Legal Storytelling, 87 Mich. L. Rev. 2073 (1989)

David Dante Troutt, Screws, Koon, and Routine Aberrations: The Use of Fictional Narratives in
   Federal Police Brutality Prosecutions, 74 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 18 (1999)

William Twining, Narrative and Generalizations in Argumentation About Questions of Fact,
40 S. Tex. L. Rev. 351 (1999)

Robin West, Jurisprudence as Narrative: An Aesthetic Analysis of Modern Legal Theory,
60 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 145 (1985)

Steven L. Winter, The Cognitive Dimension of the Agon Between Legal Power and Narrative
   Meaning, 87 Mich. L. Rev. 2225 (1989)

Mark G. Yudof, Tea at the Palaz of Hoon: the Human Voice in Legal Rules, 66 Tex.
L. Rev. 589 (1988)

 

Film: Multiplicity of Narratives and Perspectives

Rashomon (1950) (directed by Akira Kurosawa)

Orit Kamir, Judgment by Film: Socio-Legal Functions of Rashomon, 12 Yale J.L. &
Human. 39 (2000)

Class 23: Capote

Film: Capote’s Writing of In Cold Blood

Capote (2005) (starring Philip Seymour Hoffman)

 

Film: Crime, Punishment, and Redemption

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

The Green Mile (1999)

Dead Man Walking (1995)

 

Fiction: Works about Crime, Justice, and Responsibility

Katherine Ann Porter, Noon Wine (1944)

Robert Batey, Punishment by Family and Community in Katherine Ann Porter’s Noon Wine,
29 Akron L. Rev. 205 (1996)

VI. LAW, JUSTICE, AND MORALITY

Class 24: Sophocles

Commentary about Antigone

Robert Cover, Of Creon and Captain Vere, in Justice Accused (1975)

Elizabeth Villiers Gemmette, Antigone, Creon, and Captain Vere: A Response to David A. Reidy,
19 Legal Studies Forum 273 (1995)

David Gurnham, The Otherness of the Dead: The Fates of Antigone, Naricissus and the Sly Fox,
   and the Search for Justice, 16 Law & Literature 327 (2004)

G.W.F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit ch. 6 (A.V. Miller trans. 1977)

David A. Reidy, Antigone, Hegel and the Law: An Essay, 19 Legal Studies Forum 239 (1994)

George Steiner, Antigones: How the Antigone Legend Has Endured in Western
Literature, Art, and Thought (1984)

Susan W. Tiefenbrun, On Civil Disobedience, Jurisprudence, Feminism and the Law in the Antigones
   of Sophocles and Anouilh, 11 Cardozo Stud. L. & Literature 35 (1999)

Theodore Ziolkowski, The Mirror of Justice: Literary Reflections of Legal
Crisis (1997)

 

Fiction: Other Adaptations of Antigone

Seamus Heaney, The Burial at Thebes: A Version of Sophocles’ Antigone (2004)

Jean Anouilh, Antigone (1942)

A.R. Gurney, Another Antigone (1988)

Fiction: Ancient Greek Literature with Legal and Political Themes

Aeschylus, The Oresteia

Maria Aristodemou, The Seduction of Mimesis: Theater as Woman and the Play of Difference
   and Excess in Aeschylus’s Oresteia, 11 Cardozo Stud. L. & Literature 1 (1999)

Robert Batey, Literature in a Criminal Law Course: Aeschylus, Burgess, Oates, Camus, Poe,
   and Melville, 22 Legal Studies Forum 45 (1998)

Paul Gewirtz, Aeschylus’ Law, 101 Harv. L. Rev. 1043

David Luban, Some Greek Trials: Order and Justice in Homer, Hesiod, Aeschylus, and Plato,
54 Tenn. L. Rev. 279 (1987)

Aristophanes, Lysistrata

Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus

Sophocles, Oedipus Rex

Non-Fiction: Works about Civil Disobedience

Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail

Martha Minow, Breaking the Law: Lawyers and Clients in Struggles for Social Change,
52 Harv. L. Rev. 723 (1991)

Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience (1849)

 

Non-Fiction: Works about Ancient Greek Literature and the Law

David Luban, Some Greek Trials: Order and Justice in Homer, Hesiod, Aeschylus, and
Plato, 54 Tenn. L. Rev. 279 (1987)

Martha C. Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy
and Philosophy (1986)

Class 25: Kleist

Commentary on Michael Kohlhaas

Richard Kuhns, The Strangeness of Justice: Reading Michael Kohlhaas, 15 New Literary
History 73 (1983)

J.M. Lindsay, Kohlhaas and K.: Two Men in Search of Justice, 13 German Life & Letters 190 (1959)

Richard A. Posner, Law and Literature (2d ed. 1998)

Richard Sterne, Reconciliation and Alienation in Kleist’s “Michael Kohlhaas” and Doctorow’s
Ragtime, 12 Legal Studies Forum 4 (1988)

Commentary on Heinrich von Kleist

Sean Allan, The Stories of Heinrich von Kleist: Fictions of Security (2001)

Robert E. Helbling, Heinrich Von Kleist (1975)

Theodore Ziolkowski, The Mirror of Justice: Literary Reflections of Legal
Crisis (1997)

Fiction: Works by Heinrich von Kleist with Legal and Political Themes

The Broken Jug (1806)

The Prince of Homburg (1821)

The Marquise of O. (1811)

 

Fiction: Works with Similar Themes

E.L. Doctorow, Ragtime (1975)

Film

The Jack Bull (1999)

OTHER LITERARY WORKS ABOUT LAW

Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov, The Bicentennial Man

 

James Baldwin

James Baldwin, Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953)

 

John Barth

John Barth, The Floating Opera

Rob Atkinson, Nihilism Need Not Apply: Law and Literature in Barth’s The Floating Opera,
32 Arizona State L.J. 747 (2000)

 

Robert Bolt

Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons (1960)

Randy Lee, Robert Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons and the Art of Discerning Integrity,
9 Widener J. Pub. L. 305  (2000)

 

Albert Camus

Albert Camus, The Stranger (1942)

David Carroll, Guilt By “Race”: Injustice in Camus’s The Stranger, 26 Cardozo L. Rev. 2331 (2005)

Timothy P. O’Neill, Why Miranda Does Not Prevent Confessions: Some Lessons from
   Albert Camus, Arthur Miller and Oprah Winfrey, 51 Syracuse L. Rev. 863 (2001)

Richard Weisberg, The Failure of the Word (1984)

Albert Camus, The Fall (1957)

Timothy Hoff, Lawyers in the Subjunctive Mood: The Invention of Self and Albert Camus’
The Fall, 23 Legal Studies Forum 235 (1999)

Richard Weisberg, The Failure of the Word (1984)

Kenji Yoshino, Survey, 98 Mich. L. Rev. 1399 (2000) (on Albert Camus, The Fall (1956)).

Albert Camus, The Plague (1948)

 

Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim (1900)

 

James Gould Cozzens

James Gould Cozzens, Guard of Honor (1948)

James Gould Cozzens, The Just and the Unjust (1942)

 

Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens, Bleak House (1853)

Ronald Baughman, Dickens and His Lawyers, 6 ALSA Forum 168 (1982)

Thomas Alexander Fyfe, Charles Dickens and the Law (1910)

Critical Essays on Charles Dickens’s Bleak House (Elliot L. Gilbert ed. 1989)

William S. Holdsworth, Charles Dickens as a Legal Historian (1928)

Maureen E. Markey, Charles Dickens’ Bleak House: Mr. Tulkinghorn as a Successful
   Literary Lawyer, 14 St. Thomas L. Rev. 689 (2002)

Robert Donald Neely, The Lawyers of Dickens and Their Clerks (1938)

Larry M. Wertheim, Law, Literature and Morality in the Novels of Charles Dickens, 20 Wm. Mitchell L. Rev. 111 (1994)

Charles Dickens, David Copperfield (1850)

Charles Dickens, Great Expectations (1861)

Charles Dickens, Hard Times

Kent Greenfield & John E. Nillson, Gradgrind’s Education: Using Dickens and Aristotle
to Understand (and Replace?) the Business Judgment Rule, 63 Brook. L.
Rev. 799 (1997)

Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit (1857)

Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist (1838)

Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers (1837)

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1859)

Simon Petch, The Business of the Barrister in A Tale of Two Cities, 44 Criticism 27 (2002)

 

E.L. Doctorow

E.L. Doctorow, The Book of Daniel (1971)

E.L. Doctorow, Ragtime (1975)

 

George Eliot

George Eliot, Adam Bede (1859)

Roberta M. Harding, Capital Punishment as Human Sacrifice: A Societal Ritual as Depicted in George Eliot’s Adam Bede, 48 Buff. L. Rev. 175 (2000)

George Eliot, Felix Holt (1866)

Leonard J. Long, Law’s Character in Eliot’s Felix Holt, the Radical, 16 Law & Literature 237 (2004)

George Eliot, Middlemarch (1872)

George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss (1860)

George Eliot, Romola (19863)

George Eliot, Silas Marner (1861)

 

Ralph Ellison

Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (1952)

Symposium, Ralph Ellison and the Law,  26 Okla. City U. L. Rev. 823-1081 (2001)

 

William Faulkner

William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom! (1936)

William Faulkner, The Hamlet (1940)

William Faulkner, Intruder in the Dust (1948)

Rob Atkinson, Liberating Lawyers: Divergent Parallels in Intruder in the Dust and To Kill
a Mockingbird, 49 Duke L.J. 601 (1999)

William Faulkner, The Mansion (1959)

William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun (1951)

William Faulkner, Sanctuary (1931)

William Faulkner, The Town (1957)

Jay Watson, Forensic Fictions: The Lawyer Figure in Faulkner (1993)

Robert A. Ferguson, Law and Lawyers in Faulkner’s Life and Art: A Comment,
4 Miss. College L. Rev. 213 (1984)

 

Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo, Les Miserables (1862)

 

Henrik Ibsen

Henrik Ibsen, An Enemy of the People (1882)

Henrik Ibsen, A Doll’s House (1879)

Henrik Ibsen, Hedda Gabler (1890)

 

Harper Lee

Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird (1960)

Note, Being Atticus Finch: The Professional Role of Empathy in To Kill a Mockingbird,
   117 Harv. L. Rev. 1682 (2004)

Rob Atkinson, Liberating Lawyers: Divergent Parallels in Intruder in the Dust and To Kill
  a Mockingbird, 49 Duke L.J. 601 (1999)

Robert Batey, Atticus Finch, Boris A. Max, and the Lawyer’s Dilemma, 12 Tex. Wesleyan
L. Rev. 389 (2005)

Tim Dare, Lawyers, Ethics, and To Kill a Mockingbird, 25 Phil. & Lit. 127 (2001)

Monroe H. Freedman, Atticus Finch – Right and Wrong, 45 Alabama L. Rev. 473 (1994)

Monroe H. Freedman, Atticus Finch, Esq., R.I.P., 14 Legal Times 20 (1992)

Monroe H. Freedman, Finch: The Lawyer Mythologized, 14 Legal Times 25 (1992)

Steven Lubet, Reconstructing Atticus Finch, 97 Mich. L. Rev. 1339 (1999)

Michael Newcity, Why is There No Russian Atticus Finch? Or Even a Russian Rumpole?,
   12 Tex. Wesleyan L. Rev. 271 (2005)

John Jay Osborne, Jr., Atticus Finch – The End of Honor: A Discussion of To Kill a
   Mockingbird, 30 U.S.F. L. Rev. 1139 (1996)

Teresa Godwin Phelps, Atticus, Thomas, and the Meaning of Justice, 77 Notre Dame L.
Rev. 925 (2002)

Teresa Godwin Phelps, The Margins of Maycomb: A Rereading of To Kill A Mockingbird, 45 Ala. L. Rev. 511 (1994)

Thomas L. Shaffer, The Moral Theology of Atticus Finch, 42 U. Pitt. L. Rev. 181 (1981)

Bernard Malamud

Bernard Malamud, The Fixer (1966)

 

Shiga Naoya

Shiga Naoya, Han’s Crime

 

Stendahl

Stendahl, The Red and the Black (1830)

 

Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilyitch (1886)

 

Mark Twain

Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson (1894)

Lucia A. Silecchia, Things Are Seldom What They Seem: Judges and Lawyers in the Tales of
   Mark Twain, 35 Conn. L. Rev. 559 (2003)

Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn

Peter C. Myers, ‘Sivilization and Its Discontents: Nature and Law in The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn, 22 Legal Studies Forum 557 (1998)

 

Tom Wolfe

Tom Wolfe, The Bonfire of the Vanities (1987)

Richard A. Posner, The Depiction of Law in The Bonfire of the Vanities, 98 Yale L.J.
1653 (1989)

 

Richard Wright

Richard Wright, Native Son (1940)