Fiction and the Law

3 units

In this class, we will delve into connections between fiction and the law using an interdisciplinary approach. Over the course of the semester, we will review legal themes in a variety of short stories, novels, and films, including natural and positive law, elements of due process, concepts like equal opportunity, the legal bases for state regulation of personal choices, and theories of punishment. At the same time, we will consider the craft of writing in these works. How do the authors use craft devices, like foreshadowing, metaphor, and analogy, to convey meaning? By inhabiting possibilities, what can speculative fiction show us about how legal decisions could affect the future of society? Each week of class is organized around a legal subject. We will read and discuss fiction that involves the theme, review the legal context, and explore how the authors express their perspectives in the stories and seek to generate reactions in readers. To help connect the works to the legal process, some weeks we will assign legal opinions that involve the same legal themes and consider how judges, like authors, frame their arguments both logically and stylistically. And, from time to time, we will give students prompts in class, asking them to quickly write about or argue an issue from a certain point of view. This class is designed for law school students, MFA students, and upper-class English major undergraduates. It is a three-credit class, meeting once per week, over 13 weeks, for approximately two hours and twenty minutes per week. The idea is to bring together students who do not usually take courses together, to learn from each other. Over the course of semester, students will be assigned to prepare discussion points to bring to class. As a final, students will choose either a creative writing project or a seminar paper.