Law and Literature

Law and Literature

Author: Lenora Ledwon

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-06-03

Total Pages: 518

ISBN-13: 1317954181

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First published in 1996. The first anthology of its kind in this dynamic new field of study, this volume offers students the best of both worlds-theory and literature. Organized around specific themes to facilitate use of the text in a variety of courses, the material is highly accessible to undergraduates and is suitable as well for graduate students and law students. The anthology includes important articles by key figures in the law and literature debate, and presents seven thematically arranged sections that: Survey the various theoretical perspectives that inform the relationship of law and literature Examine the interplay of ethics, law, and justice * Highlight the great scope and variety of the law's contributions to the creation of a world view * Illustrate various legal approaches to punishment * Detail and analyze the law's inherent capacity for the oppression of individuals and groups * Demonstrate that law is grounded in language and storytelling * Show that despite its solemnity, the law has a comic side Each section includes excerpts from poetry, drama, fiction, and nonfiction. The excerpts include writings addressing the law's impact on the "outsider" (women, Native Americans, Hispanics, African Americans, and homosexuals), as well as writings by lawyers, judges, and law professors, giving the reader an "insider's" view of the legal system. The selections range from Plato to John Barth and Wallace Stevens. At this time of increased interest in the quality of legal writing, this course material illustrates the importance of language, word choice, metaphor, and narrative. It demonstrates the practical application of literary effects, techniques, and devices, and provides valuable insights into law as a vital component of the social fabric. SPECIAL FEATURES All law schools that do not already have one in place are required to institute a course in Law and Literature. This new anthology is the first of its kind, and has been specifically designed to meet the requirements of a Law and Literature course * Selections from judges, lawyers, and professors of law give students an insider's view of the legal system * Chronological coverage-from Plato to such 20th-century writers as John Barth and Wallace Stevens-offers students a broad range of selections that examine the relationship between law, justice, ethics, and literature * Multicultural writings address the law's capacity for the oppression of individuals and groups, including women, Native Americans, African Americans, Hispanics, and homosexuals * Law and punishment-several selections examine this area from various points of view. Suitable for courses in: Law and literature courses in law schools and undergraduate divisions as well as interdisciplinary courses in English literature.


Literature and the Law

Literature and the Law

Author: Thomas Morawetz

Publisher: Aspen Publishing

Published: 2015-01-30

Total Pages: 1077

ISBN-13: 1454861711

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A unique book that explores the intersections of law and literature through engaging and entertaining stories, book chapters, poems, plays, and articles along with discussion topics, Literature and the Law is the only available book of its kind. This text covers a comprehensive variety of topics in law and literature utilizing shorter, thought-provoking, less canonical works of fiction from such authors as Herman Melville, Harper Lee, Agatha Christie, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Cynthia Ozick, Albert Camus, and more. This approach welcomes students to develop fresh ideas through exposure to writers and stories primarily new to them. The accessibility and adaptability of this text will make it a new classroom favorite for you and your students: Engaging discussion questions following each story prompt instructors and students, alike, to explore a wide range of topics: professional ethics, justice, the lives of lawyers, the role of lawyers, the legal system, the psychology of lawyering, philosophy, and more An extensive, annotated list of complementary readings at the end of each chapter offers teachers and students a rich and varied choice beyond the selected texts An adaptable nature makes it suitable for a wide variety of teaching schemes and literary tastes. It reinforces the strengths that teachers bring to the subject while filling in background information and offering texts for those areas with which they are less familiar, making it an ideal source for professors to integrate into their current teaching materials


New Directions in Law and Literature

New Directions in Law and Literature

Author: Elizabeth Susan Anker

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 449

ISBN-13: 019045637X

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This collection of essays by twenty-two prominent scholars from literature departments and law schools showcases the vibrancy of recent work in law and literature and highlights its many new directions since the field's heyday in the 1970s and 80s.


Poethics, and Other Strategies of Law and Literature

Poethics, and Other Strategies of Law and Literature

Author: Richard H. Weisberg

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 1992

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 9780231074544

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A pioneer of the the new law and literature movement narrates its central vision, which he calls poethics: the revival of jurisprudence through literary sources and techniques. He argues that lawyers, like novelists, must use language that is precise, passionate and real, in order to tell their stories clearly and persuasively.


Law and Literature

Law and Literature

Author: Richard A. Posner

Publisher:

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 440

ISBN-13:

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Hailed in its first edition as an "outstanding work, as stimulating as it is intellectually distinguished" (New York Times), Richard A. Posner's Law and Literature has handily lived up to the Washington Post's prediction that the book would "remain essential reading for many years to come." This new edition, extensively revised and enlarged, continues to emphasize the essential differences between law and literature, which are rooted in the different social functions of legal and literary texts. But it also explores areas of mutual illumination and expands its range to include new topics such as popular fiction about law, literary education for lawyers, the legal narrative movement, and judicial biography. Literary works from classics by Sophocles, Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, Melville, Kafka, and Camus to contemporary fiction by William Gaddis, Tom Wolfe, and John Grisham come under Posner's scrutiny, as do recent attempts to apply the techniques of literary analysis to statutes, judicial opinions, and the Constitution. In a section entirely new in this edition, Posner discusses the increasing efforts of legal scholars to enrich their scholarship by borrowing the methods and insights of literature--even by insisting that legal education is incomplete without the ethical insights afforded by an immersion in literature. Thoroughly rewritten and updated, free of legal and literary jargon, and informed by Posner's extensive erudition and legal experience, this book remains the most clear, acute, and comprehensive account of the intersection of law and literature--"a wonderfully original and instructive study of what literature has to teach us about the law, the methods of legal argument, and the interpretation of statutes and the Constitution" (Wall Street Journal).


Law and Literature

Law and Literature

Author: Ian Ward

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1995-05-26

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 0521474744

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The emergence of an interdisciplinary study of law and literature is one of the most exciting theoretical developments taking place in North America and Britain. In Law and Literature: Possibilities and Perspectives Ian Ward explores the educative ambitions of the law and literature movement, and its already established critical, ethical and political potential. He reveals the law in literature, and the literature of law, in key areas of literature, from Shakespeare to Beatrix Potter to Umberto Eco, and from feminist literature to children's literature to the modern novel, drawing out the interaction between rape law and The Handmaid's Tale, and the psychology of English property law and The Tale of Peter Rabbit. This original book defines the developing state of law and literature studies, and demonstrates how the theory of law and literature can illuminate the literary text.


Literature and Law

Literature and Law

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2016-08-09

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 9401201315

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In recent years, there has been a continuing and persistent world-wide interest in the interaction between the two disciplines of law and literature. Although there have been many collections of primary texts that combined these two areas, this volume presents literary analyses and criticism in an attempt to assess the varied relationships between law and justice, between lawyers and clients, and between readers’ perceptions and authors’ intent, hopefully suggesting why they have continually been yoked together. One similarity between the two is that lawyers, like writers, must catch their audience’s attention by novelty of scene, distinctiveness of voice, and ingenuity of design. Furthermore, legal advocates must recreate a concrete sense of reality, developing vivid and valid pictures of a specific time and place. In short, both lawyers and writers attempt to provide a basis for juries / readers to judge defendants / characters by their motivations and their actions and to decide whether a favorable ruling / assessment is justified. Collectively, the essays in this book are designed to deal with themes of guilt and innocence, right and wrong, morality and legality. The essays also suggest that the world as it is delineated by lawyers is indeed a text that like its literary counterparts sometimes blurs the distinction between fact and fiction as it attempts to define “truth” and to establish criteria for “impartial” justice. By exploring interdisciplinary contexts, readers will surely be made more aware, more sensitive to the roles that stories play in the legal profession and to the dilemmas faced by legal systems that often succeed in maintaining the rights and privileges of a dominant societal group at the expense of a less powerful one.


Teaching Law and Literature

Teaching Law and Literature

Author: Austin Sarat

Publisher: Modern Language Association of America

Published: 2011-07-01

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781603290937

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This volume provides a resource for teachers interested in learning about the field of law and literature and shows how to bring its insights to bear in their classrooms, both in the liberal arts and in law schools. Essays in the first section, "Theory and History of the Movement," provide a retrospective of the field and look forward to new developments. The second section, "Model Courses," offers readers an array of possibilities for structuring courses that integrate legal issues with the study of literature, from The Canterbury Tales to current prison literature. In "Texts," the third section, guidance is provided for teaching not only written documents (novels, plays, trial reports) but also cultural objects: digital media, Native American ceremonies, documentary theater, hip-hop. The volume's forty-one contributors investigate what constitutes law and literature and how each informs the other.


Practice Extended

Practice Extended

Author: Robert A. Ferguson

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2016-03-01

Total Pages: 350

ISBN-13: 0231540590

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Written by a renowned literary critic and legal historian, Practice Extended illuminates the intricacies of legal language and thought and the law's relationship to society, literature, and culture. Robert A. Ferguson details how judicial opinions are written, how legal thought and philosophy inform ideas, and how best to appreciate a courtroom novel. With chapters touching on a wide range of subjects, including immigration, eloquence, the U.S. Constitution, and the Supreme Court case over James Joyce's Ulysses, Practice Extended provides an ambitious argument for the importance of language in law and a much-needed analysis of the often vexed relationship between law and literature. Ferguson challenges the notion of law as a hermetic enterprise only accessible to experts. He reveals the discipline's relationships to history, religion, philosophy, psychology, anthropology, and the visual arts, offering a rich account of how the law has shaped and has been shaped by communal thought. He also recognizes the critical role of literature and other outside views in showcasing the social problems that law takes up. Practice Extended reflects Ferguson's crucial role as a pioneer in developing the field of law and literature. His writing reminds us of the need for a critical approach to the law that draws on the insights of literature to better understand political and legal history and the documents, laws, and arguments that shape our present. At the same time, this volume also showcases the ways in which the law has been integrated into works of literature, from Billy Budd to contemporary courtroom thrillers.