Randy Berlin : Courses and Seminars
Greenberg Seminar: Kafka and the Law
LAWS 95902
Franz Kafka, the greatest lawyer writer of fiction, made law a theme of some of his most important fiction, such as the novel The Trial and the stories In the Penal Colony and The Judgment. And fiction by him that is not directly about law often deals with social problems with which law frequently deals. The seminar will read a number of his fictional works (which are short), and also some of his law-office writing, with a view toward identifying and analyzing the legal and policy themes (but also their philosophical and literary aspects) in his "day job" as a workers' compensation lawyer and in his fiction.
Interested students should write to all three professors by September 15, saying why they want to take the class and what their relevant background is in literature.
This class is capped at 15. 12 seats will be allocated to J.D. students and 3 to LL.M. students.
Graded Pass/Fail.
Autumn 2011
Richard A. Posner, Martha Nussbaum, Randy Berlin
Law and Literature
LAWS 99302
This seminar will use the connections between law and literature to examine the development of law and the role of narrative and concepts of justice in the practice of law. Through reading and discussion of some of the world's greatest fiction, we will critically analyze legal themes, from their pre-law beginnings as wild justice to the rule of law. It is no coincidence that much of our imaginative literature and our most popular media entertainment have issues of law as their main themes. Both use the literary imagination to construct a dramatic narrative that engages or persuades. To provide us with fictional illustrations of legal issues, we will read selections from Beowulf, Plato, Sophocles, and Shakespeare, to works by Kafka, Tolstoy and Melville.
There will be two short reaction papers, a questionnaire and no final examination.
Class size is limited to 12 participants.
Winter 2012
Randy Berlin
