Topics in Combined Studies (385-0-20)
Topic
Law & Literature
Instructors
Regina M Schwartz
Meeting Info
Online: Mon, Wed 12:30PM - 1:50PM
Overview of class
This course will examine ideas of justice in western cultural and literary traditions. The focus will be the classical tradition, the biblical tradition, and Shakespeare who inherited both and reworked them in the early modern period. The trial of Socrates, the trial of Jesus, biblical prophecy, tragedy in Aeschylus and Shakespeare, and a modern work by Melville will be included. Our exploration will be done in the context of theories of justice, and we will read those theories alongside the literature. But we will also heed how literature itself offers elaborations of theories of justice, following their consequences both within legal frameworks and beyond, as they shape the public and intimate lives of people. We will ask how religious ideas of justice inform and depart from secular ideas of justice, how retributive and distributive ideas of justice are imagined and critiqued, and how the relation between justice and law has been conceived.
Teaching Method
Lecture and discussion.
Evaluation Method
Discussion and papers.
Class Materials (Required)
Excepts from Plato, Aristotle, The Eumenides, Romeo and Juliet, excerpts from Rawls, Kymlicka, Political Philosophy.
Class Notes
If you have completed Professor Schwartz's First Year Seminar, titled Ideas of Justice, you may not take this course and count it toward major or minor requirements.
Class Attributes
Literature & Fine Arts Distro Area
Synchronous:Class meets remotely at scheduled time
SDG Reduced Inequality
SDG Peace & Justice