| Lerninhalte |
The relationship between literature and law is well established in world literature. Think about writers such as Fyodor Dostoevsky, Albert Camus, and Franz Kafka who use (fictional) criminal cases and trials for thinking about systems and the human condition. We will look at three recent works that use actual court cases to discuss both the necessity of narratives and their frequent absence. Philip's poetic Zong deals with an 18th century trial about a slave ship, Mann's Execution of Justice is a drama about a late 1970s homophobic crime, and Nelson uses a 2004-trial that employs new DNA-evidence to follow a series of murdered women in the 1960s. Additionally, we will read theory and practice the analysis of prose, poetry, and drama as our three examples are of different genres.
Students of this class must purchase and read:
- M. NourbeSe Philip, Zong! Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 2008.
- Maggie Nelson, Jane, A Murder (Berkeley: Soft Skull Press, 2005).
- Emily Mann, Execution of Justice. (Only available in: Emily Mann, Testimonies. Four Plays. New York: Theater Communications Group, 1997) |
