Instructor: Dr. Daniel Skubik, PhD JD MDiv
Voice: 951.343.4288 / Fax: 951.343.4520
Office: James 266; available by app’t
Web: http://www.calbaptist.edu/dskubik
E-Mail: dskubik@calbaptist.edu
Law & Literature
ENG 549
Tuesdays 5:00-8:00PM
California Baptist University
May 12-Jul 14, Summer Term, 2009
As several legal scholars have observed, law is a profession of words. It is also a discipline or practice, like religion, in which stories play a critical role. This course is designed to examine the role and function of narrative in law, and the role and function of law in major works of literature, to understand better both law and literature. To do this, the course focuses upon the techniques we normally associate with reading literature to read, understand and interpret law. We will utilize selections ranging from Homer (Iliad), Kafka (“Before the Law”), Dickens (Bleak House), Dostoevsky (Brothers Karamazov), Melville (Billy Budd), Shakespeare (“Merchant of Venice”), and the Hebrew Scriptures (Noahic and Mosaic law), examining how literature often constructs law; and the consequences of reading law, represented in selections from the U.S. Constitution and U.S. Supreme Court decisions, as literature.
Required Texts
Guyora Binder & Robert Weisberg, Literary Criticisms of Law (Princeton University Press, 2000) [B&W]
Jerome Bruner, Making Stories: Law, Literature, Life (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2002) [Bruner]
Richard Posner, Law and Literature (revised & enlarged edition, Harvard University Press, 1998/2002) [P]
All books are readily available, new & used, from web shops such as Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble, as well as from the CBU Bookshop.
Additional literature, legal references, readings and films will also be set throughout the term, drawing from items placed on Blackboard (Bb), or on reserve in the Annie Gabriel Library (AGL) and available through the Internet (such as through Bartleby, FindLaw and Lexis-Nexis).
Supplemental titles of interest and value, recommended but not required for completion of course
William Bishin & Christopher Stone, Law, Language and Ethics: An Introduction to Law and Legal Method (Foundation Press, 1972)
Sanford Levinson & Steven Mailloux (eds.), Interpreting Law and Literature: A Hermeneutic Reader (Northwestern University Press, 1988/1991)
Gregory Leyh (ed.), Legal Hermeneutics: History, Theory, and Practice (University of California Press, 1992)
Thomas Morawetz (ed.), Literature and the Law (Wolters Kluwer, 2007)
Richard Weisberg, Poethics and Other Strategies of Law and Literature (Columbia University Press, 1992)
Readings & Assignments Schedule
|
Week #1 |
Intro to course / Law as Lit and Lit as Law [Before
the Law] |
|
Week #2 |
Legal Texts [Genesis 9 1-17
and Exodus 21 28 – 22 8] |
|
Week #3 |
Hermeneutics and Antinomies of the Law [Merchant
of Venice] |
|
Week #4 |
Narrative Criticism of Law [Wisconsin v.
Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972)] |
|
Week #5 |
Film viewing and critique: To Kill A Mockingbird |
|
Week #6 |
Revenge and Limits [Iliad and Hamlet
and The Trial and Bleak House] |
|
Week #7 |
Rhetoric of Injustice [Billy Budd and The
Brothers Karamazov] |
|
Week #8 |
Film viewing and critique: Judgment at Nuremberg |
|
Week #9 |
Cultural Criticism [Planned Parenthood v.
Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992)] |
|
Week #10 |
Final Examination |
Assessment & Grading Scale
|
Journaling Project = 40% |
90 - 100 = A range (90-94 = A-) |
|
Comprehensive Final Exam = 35% |
80 - 89 = B range (80-83 = B- / 87-89 = B+) |
|
Participation in-class = 15% |
70 - 79 = C range (70-73 = C- / 78-79 = C+) |
|
Participation online (Bb) = 10% |
60 - 69 = D range (60-63 = D- / 67-69 = D+) |
|
|
0 - 59 = F |
Comprehensive Final Examination
The final exam will be comprehensive in nature, with an emphasis on analytical essay writing that draws from the full scope of our studies. (It will not be focused to elicit objective data, for example, linking or identifying particular theorists to suggested positions or claims.)
The exam will be comprised of several (~4-6) essay problems, grounded on some legal or literary selection and requiring close analysis of the text in the light of our readings and discussions. Students can choose to write on any two (2) of those listed essays, each being worth 50% of the exam’s total points.
The exam will be given during the final class meeting on Tuesday, July 14th, beginning at 5:00PM, and should take approximately 140 minutes to complete. Students will be given the full three-hour (180 minutes) class period to write. Make-ups are not usually permitted, and alternative arrangements require serious scheduling problems before options will be considered.
Journaling Project
Students should begin compiling an electronic journal related to this class. This means that one should be journaling (that is, preparing written entries in some digital format that can be transmitted to the instructor via email) for each week that the class is scheduled to meet, irrespective of whether the student actually attended that week’s session. A minimum of 6 substantive entries timely-submitted are required for a student to be eligible for a nominal mark (= C level assessment), and a minimum of 8 substantive entries are required for a student to be eligible for a superior mark (= B & A level assessment).
A substantive entry is ~750 words (minimum, lengthier entries are welcome) summarizing some key points from particular week’s readings and class discussions, perhaps relating to some real world case or event, some recently read piece of literature in another class, or simply ideas provoked. These entries can form a series of reflections, so linking entries along the way one to another like an intellectual diary, or can be independent musings.
To be considered timely, any entry should be sent to the instructor’s email account (dskubik@calbaptist.edu) either as plain text within the body of the email or as a Word attachment) no later than midnight on the Saturday of each class week for which credit is sought. Thus, for example, a journal entry for Week 2—when we meet on Tuesday, May 19th—is due no earlier than the class meeting itself and no later than midnight (local time) on Saturday, May 23rd. Entries for Week 2 that are received before class actually convenes or after that Saturday will be accepted as part of the overall journaling project, but that entry will not be counted towards the minimum number of entries noted above.
Participation & Attendance
Although speaking in class, publicly putting and defending a position or interpretation, can be daunting, you are strongly encouraged to learn to think through your own and others’ experiences and insights within the context of our discussions. In this setting, you are not being evaluated for reaching “right” conclusions, but for demonstrating your facility in forming arguments for any conclusions or ideas put, given the material we cover.
To give direct incentive to so engage, 25% of your mark for the course will be comprised of my assessment of your participation during the term. Participation covers in-class (15%) and online discussions (10%). Participation in-class includes substantive contributions to our discussions on a regular basis and does not include attendance; participation online includes substantive contributions and reading others’ contributions on a regular basis in the Blackboard forums.
Both because of the nature of the course and its content, attendance is expected, with a simple threshold requirement: we have ten (10) scheduled face-to-face class sessions, and you are required to attend at least seven (7) class sessions in full. Should you cumulatively miss more than three (3) class sessions, you must speak with the instructor before you will be permitted to complete the course for a grade. (Absence from a full class session means wholly missing a 3-hour weekly meeting; arriving at a scheduled weekly meeting more than 30 minutes late, or excusing oneself more than 30 minutes before class ends will count as missing ˝ full class session.)
Caveat
This syllabus schedule is composed in good faith, with a schedule of readings and assignments that will guide us throughout the term. Still, the instructor reserves the right to make adjustments to this schedule as deemed necessary for the overall enterprise of the course. Any changes will be communicated as far in advance as feasible, and you are responsible for knowing if and when any changes have been made.