Can a Literary Approach to Matters of Legal Concern Offer a Fairer Hearing than that Typically Offered by the Law (original) (raw)
Related papers
Bringing Fiction to Justice: Including Individual Narrative in Judicial Opinions
Hastings women's law journal, 1990
Member of the Hastings Class of 1991. This essay is dedicated to all who feel they don't fit in. My very special thanks to Janine Natter and Diane Bessette for their editorial assistance and loving support, and to Professor Stephanie Wildman for helping me recognize the importance of my own voice. 1. This paper is an example of including individual narrative voice in analytic writing. 2. Kolodny, Some Notes on Defming a "Feminist Literary Criticism," CRITICAL INQUIRY 75, 79 (Autumn 1975).
Literary ( In ) Justice An Interview With
2013
I cannot claim to be one of the founding scholars in law and literature—for an explanation of how law and literature as a ‘movement’ arose, there are accounts of this to be found, particularly in relation to the American scene—with Benjamin Cardozo, for example, making explicit acknowledgement of writers as fundamental sources of understanding in law and implicitly of law itself. More recently, James Boyd White in the 1970’s in recognizing the link between the worlds of law and of literature both as a source of analogous narrative models and in the shared investment in critical, deconstructive processes. Later commentary has recognized law and literature as just one aspect of the larger ‘critical legal studies’ movement, claiming the political agenda of exposing the impossibility of neutrality and law as essentially political. However, I feel rather resistant to the categorizing tendency—of sourcing a ‘history’ or a ‘movement’ or even a ‘discipline’ of law and literature. For exampl...
Narrative in the Legal Text: Judicial Opinions and Their Narratives*
Narrative and Metaphor in the Law
Please refer to the published version to quote or cite: https://books.google.ca/books?id=NP5DDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA121&dq=%22Judicial+Opinions+and+The ir+Narratives%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiI1piyuqjYAhUI0YMKHf2kA4QQ6AEIKTAA#v=one page&q=%22Judicial%20Opinions%20and%20Their%20Narratives%22&f=false Abstract: the law's most familiar and characteristic mode of written expression, the judgment, lacks two of the key ingredients that contribute to the lure of literary narrativenamely, the drive, fueled by uncertainty and anticipation, that propels readers on towards the conclusion, and the pleasure of observing and reflecting on others' mental states, which accounts for a considerable part of fiction's cognitive appeal. The absence of these features should alert us to the questionable premises underlying any treatment of the judgment as simply one more form of narrative, whose fundamental similarity to novels and films can be taken for granted. Using a few fundamental concepts in the study of narrative, involving the definition of plot and the power of the "reality effect" (whose analogue, I propose, is the "legality effect"), this chapter asks what we can learn about legal decisions by considering them as a distinctive kind of narrative, rather than summarily lumping them together with literary narratives. Narrative is essential to numerous aspects of legal practice and writing, from pleading and negotiation to the interpretation of evidence and conflict resolution. Indeed, one of the earliest senses of narrator in English, dating from the thirteenth century, refers to a pleader or serjeant-at-law tasked with reciting a party's statement. 1 Yet the law's most familiar and characteristic mode of written expression, the judgment, lacks two of the key ingredients that contribute to the lure of literary narrative-namely, the drive, fueled by uncertainty and anticipation, that propels readers on towards the conclusion, and the pleasure of observing and 1
aw is composed, in large part, of stories and storytelling. Even before litigation begins, clients tell their lawyers the stories that made them seek (or require) professional legal aide. In their closing remarks, lawyers both for the prosecution and the defense craft competing narratives that draw attention to particular elements of the case in order to entice judges and juries to agree with them. Decisions issued by judges often establish the facts of a case and the legal issue being contested through a narrative form that caters to their conclusions. As decisions become precedent, these narratives are told and retold with new characters and new scenes being added whenever an issue is revisited. Perhaps more than legal professionals, the lay public also understands the law through stories and narratives with heroes and villains, plot twists and climactic conclusions. Responding to the detached reasoning prevalent in analytic jurisprudence, constitutional originalism, and law and economics, disenchanted legal scholars and interdisciplinary academics have turned to literature and literary studies for insight into the purpose, practice, and analysis of law. Ignited by James Boyd White's publication of The Legal Imagination in 1973, the law and literature movement has proved to be a compelling counter to the systematization and standardization of legal discourse. Rather than view the law as a set of rules and cases as sets of facts, law and literature stresses the importance of narratives as they operate under the auspices of law.
Literature and Law: A Study on the Intersection of Literary Narratives and Legal Systems
Samdarshi ISSN: 2581-3986 Vol 16 Issue 2 (July 2023), 2023
The relationship between law and literature has long been a subject of interest to scholars from diverse fields. While law provides a framework for societal governance, literature serves as a reflection of cultural and social norms. This paper explores the intersection of law and literature and critically analyses the role of literature in shaping legal discourse and vice versa. The paper argues that literature serves as an important tool for understanding and critiquing the law, while the law influences the themes and content of literature. The paper also examines the historical evolution of law and literature and highlights key debates surrounding the relationship between the two disciplines. Using case studies from various literary works, the paper analysis the ways in which literature engages with legal themes and the extent to which literature can contribute to legal scholarship.
Literature and Law: Mirrors facing each other
International Journal of Humanities and Social Science
I. INTRODUCTION Literature and law though being separate branches of social sciences share some proximity and amalgamate in objectives. Literature tends towards abstraction, creativity, variety in description and narration and is abundant in genres. Law on the other hand tends towards clarity, logical interpretation scope, definite pattern and style of drafting and is varied in branches. " The relationship between law and literature is rich and complex. In the past three and half decades, the topic has received much attention from literary critics and legal scholars studying modern literature. Ever since the publication of James Boyd White's The Legal Imagination in 1973, there have been numerous books and articles studying the role of law in the plays of Shakespeare or the novels of Dostoevsky, Melville, Kafka and Camus. Some writers have studied works of literature from jurisprudential perspective; others have applied the tools of literary analysis to legal texts such as ...
"Literary Evidence and Legal Aesthetics"
This short essay considers the different ways in which law professors and English professors teach courses in Law and Literature -- particularly the differences in the course materials and the analytic approaches used in understanding those materials. Courses taught on law faculties generally include fewer readings drawn from case law and legal theory. On the other hand, courses taught in English departments are more likely to emphasize similarities between the legal readings and works of fiction or drama. I discuss some of the disciplinary habits that make it difficult for faculty members in each area to come to terms with materials taken from another discipline, but I end by arguing that these barriers are not insurmountable and can even be addressed, to some extent, by focusing on analytical habits already available in the home discipline.
Literary Analysis of Law: Reorienting the Connections Between Law and Literature
Critical Analysis of Law
This special issue on the New Literary Analysis of Law features articles that dispense with the choice between “law in literature” and “law as literature,” to ask how legal and literary forms, methods, concepts, and attitudes can be productively explored in tandem. Conventionally, when scholars ask how legal actors and problems are portrayed in literature, or how hermeneutic theory may shed light on statutory or constitutional interpretation, these questions are meant to help solve a legal problem, at a doctrinal or conceptual level. But once we abandon the requirement that literature serve as an assistant in this fashion, many new possibilities for the literary study of law come into visibility. The essays in this special issue explore some of those directions.
Ga. L. Rev., 1985
To appreciate how much warmth and light were generated when law, humanities, and spring marched into Georgia together last March, you really had to be there. We pondered James Boyd White's question, "What should be the erotics of legal criticism?, "I and wondered how such a question might conceivably relate to Robert Cover's jeremiad, "It is a plain and nasty thought that death and pain are at the center of constitutional interpretation."-Milner Ball's excellent work on law and metaphor provided crucial connectives; his call to batter the bulwarks and work toward organic and utopian possibilities helped rally the skeptics and even responded to the cynics. But that glorious early spring turned into Georgia's worst drought in a century, and the sudden death of Bob Cover intruded to change us all. Words fail us. No one can begin to convey the sense of tragedy that now connects those who were in Georgia then, because the conference was to be Bob Cover's last. As always, Bob was passionately engaged with words and texts, with what was happening inside and out and at the margin. He talked with fervor of spring training and the Red Sox, and with humor about Talmudic passages and his time in jail in Georgia two decades earlier. Visibly, and wonderfully, Bob shared it all with his son, A vidan. Avidan appreciated Bob's talk and exuberantly enjoyed the beach