Law and Literature Seminar

This seminar examines popular representations of law and lawyers as culturally meaningful texts.

• What strategies do creators use in their portrayals of the practice and its practitioners?
• Why has the image of the lawyer, the depiction of courtroom trials, and the conception of justice resonated so powerfully in American culture
• Has the role of the profession in the popular consciousness changed over time?
• How relevant are issues of race, class, and gender to the way in which legal narrative is created and understood?

The above are but a few of the questions addressed as the class looks at this narrative in fiction, film, and news coverage.