Course Schedule:
(Subject to change, depending on our progress. I’ll make all significant changes, including to deadlines, in writing on the course blog and over email.)
Readings are listed on the day that they will be discussed. In other words, you should be sure to read those pages before the listed class period.
Assignments are listed in bold. Details for assignments will be distributed in advance.
Please note: the readings and topics discussed in this course can be upsetting and infuriating. We will discuss, among other distressing topics, violence, murder, rape, and the large-scale subjugation of humans because of their race. Sometimes descriptions will be graphic. Often, descriptions will feature language that we no longer accept as appropriate. If you are having trouble completing the reading because of topics covered, please come speak with me, and we can discuss strategies that may be helpful. You may want to delegate extra time to preparing the readings that you know will be difficult to get through. I hope that together we can create a classroom environment where everyone will feel comfortable speaking freely, but if you would prefer to discuss something with me alone, do not hesitate to come to office hours or make an appointment.
Week one
8/27 Introduction
8/29 Law and Literature (Law as Literature? Law in Literature?) (reading questions)
*Peter Brooks, “Literature as Law’s Other”
*Dickens, “In Chancery” (ch. 1 of Bleak House)
*Auden “Law like Love”
*Kafka, “Kafka Before the Law”
Week two
9/3 *William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure (Acts I and II)
9/5 no class (Classes are on a Monday schedule.)
Week three
9/10 Measure for Measure (Act III, Acts IV and V)
9/12 *Laura Kolb,
*Rowan Ricardo Phillips, “Measure for Measure”
*Andrew Majeske, “Equity’s Absence”
Response paper #1
Week four
9/17 NO CLASS (elevator emergency)
9/19 no class Caleb Williams (volume I)
I have a conference, so we won’t meet in class. Check the course blog for an online assignment.
Week five
9/24 Caleb Williams (Vol. II)
9/26 Caleb Williams in context
*Godwin’s Political Philosophy and England in the 1790s
Edmund Burke, from Reflections on the Revolution in France
Thomas Paine, from Rights of Man
Godwin, from Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (both excerpts)
from Godwin’s Correspondence
(Catch up and continue to read Caleb Williams.)
Response paper #2
Week six
10/1 no class
10/3 Caleb Williams (volume III)
*The Composition of the Novel:
Godwin, “Original Manuscript Ending of the Novel” (required)
“Godwin’s Account of the Composition of the Novel” (recommended)
“Godwin’s Account of the Novel’s Aims” (recommended)
Godwin’s “Of History and Romance” (recommended)
Research paper thoughts/notes
Week seven
10/8 no class
10/10 Daniel Defoe, Plague Year (“note” and 1 through “I shall say more of this case in its order”)
Response paper #3
Week eight
10/15 Plague Year (through “or upon any belonging to them)
10/17 Plague Year (through the end)
Research essay proposal
Week nine (see staged reading of 1001 Nights this week)
10/22 On strict liability and harm
*Sandra Macpherson, from Harm’s Way
10/24 On law and public health, AIDS, Vaccination
Take-home midterm
Week ten
10/29 Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye (opening, autumn, winter)
10/31 The Bluest Eye (spring)
Close reading Response paper #4
Week eleven
11/5 [Last day to drop and receive a W.]
The Bluest Eye (summer)
*Karla FC Holloway, “Bodies as Evidence” See blog post on Brown v Board of Education
11/7 *Susan Glaspell, “Jury of Her Peers”
Rape law since Ovid We’ll talk about research paper organization (and meet in 7-205)
Response paper #4 Close reading (for research paper)
Week twelve
11/12 No class today (English department external review), but I’ll hold extra office hours and we’ll move these readings to 11/14
*James Baldwin, from Evidence of Things Not Seen
*Ta-Nehisi Coates, “The Case for Reparations”
11/14 *Hannah Arendt, “House of Justice” from Eichmann in Jerusalem
Annotated bibliography
Week thirteen
11/19 Valeria Luiselli, The Lost Children’s Archive (part I)
11/21 Children’s Archive (part II)
Response paper #5
Week fourteen
11/26 Children’s Archive (parts III and IV)
11/28 no class Happy Thanksgiving!
Week fifteen
12/3 Class visit on immigration law in NYC
12/5 no class Individual essay conferences.
Week sixteen
12/10 In-class writing workshop
12/12 Wrap-up
Final research essay