ENG 276LEC—Literature and the Law

What stories can law tell? How does story-making shape our legal system? This course explores how legal and literary writing use language and narrative to address fundamental problems of justice, equity, and fairness. We will consider these questions by evaluating representations of law in various genres, including lyrical poetry, Sophoclean drama, fiction by Melville, Kafka, and Morrison, and films like *Twelve Angry Men* and *A Civil Action.* Alongside these works of literature, we will also read statutes, constitutional provisions, and landmark judicial opinions to ask how rhetoric and storytelling shape the making and interpretation of law.