The Law and Literature Series - seminars
1. Just Desserts: Behind the Scenes of America's Legal System (from the kitchen to the consumer - two-five day seminar
2. Law and Literature: Never the Twain Shall Meet? - two-five day seminar
3. Loves Me, Loves Me Knot -- the History, Law and Literature of Marriage - two-five day seminar
4. Law and Literature -- Confronting Life and Death - seminar or full course
1. Just Desserts: Behind the Scenes of America's Legal System (from the kitchen to the consumer) - two-five day seminar (co-facilitators, depending on group size: Tim Baland, Steve Barkan, Walt Kelly, Karen Schudson)
Law, some say, is like sausage – it’s best if you don’t really know how it’s made. But law, according to Judge Schudson, really is best when cooked carefully, by the best chefs using the finest ingredients. So come into the kitchen. Read the real recipes, both good and bad. And taste the desserts, just and … perhaps not so flavorful.
Just Desserts is a five-course feast. Each day, this interactive seminar will sample a different dish — corporate crime, employment discrimination, child sexual abuse, environmental protection, abortion, tort reform, DNA evidence, “whistleblowers” and consumer protection are among the many possible hot topics. Each day, the seminar will digest an actual case — discussing the arguments, studying the decision, learning how it developed, and discerning whether justice was done. And by week’s end, the seminar will consider what, if anything, these seemingly disparate dishes convey about justice in America today.
The main course of reading will consist of five fascinating judicial decisions. The trimmings will include a few short stories by great American authors and a movie or two. Hold onto your briefs – Just Desserts promises to be fast-paced, serious, fun … and truly delicious!
2. Law and Literature: Never the Twain Shall Meet? - two-five day seminar (co-facilitators, depending on group size: Tim Baland, Steve Barkan, Walt Kelly, Karen Schudson)
With literary masters and judges as your guides, enter some of America’s deepest forests — violence against women, corporate crime, immigration, genetic research, elder care, mental illness and others. Explore the moral, ethical, and legal conflicts confronting writers and judges, the ways they respond, and the extent to which they influence the choices America makes. Your literary trail will be blazed by short stories — Tolstoy, Melville, Kafka, Susan Glaspell and Katherine Anne Porter are among your many possible pathfinders, each traveling in tandem with actual judicial decisions addressing the same subjects. Law and Literature: Never the Twain Shall Meet? You be the judge.
3. Loves Me, Loves Me Knot -- the History, Law and Literature of Marriage - two-five day seminar (co-facilitator: Karen Schudson)
"Love and marriage, love and marriage, go together like a horse and carriage…." So the song says.
"No," answers Stephanie Coontz in Marriage, a History -- from Obedience to Intimacy or How Love Conquered Marriage, not necessarily, not historically, and certainly not until recently. And she probes "why the revolutionary implications of the love match took so long to play out and why, just when it seemed unassailable, the love-based marriage" of modern times "began to crumble."
Neither marital workshop nor touchy-feely encounter group, Loves Me, Loves Me Knot will explore the history, law, and literature of marriage. With Coontz' groundbreaking book laying our foundation, and with short stories and movies building our structure, we will consider contemporary topics including marriage and: politics; public policy; economics; grandparenting; blended families; sex; tragedy (when terrible things happen to loving couples); "collaborative divorce"; the ingredients of great and gruesome couplings; myths; humor; spirituality; and finally, what we simply won't take for granted … "love and marriage."
Appropriate for all -- men and women, couples and individuals, married, single, separated, divorced, widowed, or just simply wondering -- Loves Me, Loves Me Knot offers fascinating history, provocative literature, and entertaining cinema to help us all untie some heartfelt but simplistic assumptions so we might do a bit of intellectual re-lacing.
4. Law and Literature -- Confronting Life and Death - seminar or full course
Designed as a two-week program for undergraduates, this course consists of six components:
(4) classroom guest appearances, as requested by college faculty
Week 1
Sunday
5:00 - 7:30 PM
Dinner with "Just Desserts" students
Introduction: The Common Law -- What Sixth Grade Civics Forgot
Monday
10:00 - noon
Birth (and Abortion)
Bellotti v. Baird, United States Supreme Court (1979)
State v. Miller, Wisconsin Circuit Court (1991)
Tuesday
10:00 - noon
Individualism (and Social Control)
Papachristou v. City of Jacksonville, United States Supreme Court (1972)
Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street,Herman Melville7:00 - 8:30 PM
A Night at the Movies: "Bartleby" (required for Just Desserts students; open to the college community).
8:30 - 9:30 PM
Discussion: The Oddball and the Law -- Herman Melville and the First Amendment
Reserve reading recommended for movie and discussion attendees:
Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street, Herman Melville
Wednesday
10:00 - noon
Homes (and Homicides)
A Jury of Her Peers, Susan Glaspell
Sicilian Honor, Luigi Pirandello
Early Morning, Lonely Ride, Nancy Huddleston Packer7:00 - 9:00 PM
Lecture (required for "Just Desserts" students)
"Alice in Courtland"
Women and Children in America's Justice SystemReserve readings (required for "Just Desserts" students; recommended for all lecture attendees):
Schudson, Making Courts Safe for Children
Schudson, Antagonistic Parents in Family Courts…
Thursday
10:00 - noon
Abused Children (and Abusive Government)
In the Interest of S.W., Wisconsin Circuit Court (1983)
DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services, United States Supreme Court (1989)
State v. Schulpius, dissent, Wisconsin Court of Appeals (2003)
Wisconsin Supreme Court (2006)
Friday
Discussion(s): "So You're Thinking About Law School …"
Week 2
Monday
10:00 - noon
Privacy (and Publicity)
Reporter Jailed After Refusing to Name Source (and subsequent articles),
New York Times (2005)
Branzburg v. Hayes, United States Supreme Court (1972)
I Make a Crime Wave, Lincoln Steffens
Mr. Havlena's Verdict, Karel Capek
Perspectives, Wolf Blitzer (Newsweek, 2005)7:00 - 9:30 PM
A Night at the Movies: "Absence of Malice" (required for "Just Desserts" students; open to the college community)
9:30 - 10:30 PM
Discussion: The Journalist and the Law -- Judith Miller, Valerie Plame, and the First Amendment (required for Just Desserts students; open to the college community).
Reserve reading recommended for movie and discussion attendees:
Branzburg v. Hayes, United States Supreme Court (1972)
Tuesday
10:00 - noon
Trials (and Tribulations)
Nailing an Omelet to the Wall: Prosecuting Nursing Home Homicide,
Schudson, Onellion, and Hochstedler
Noon Wine, Katherine Anne Porter
Wednesday
10:00 - noon
Office hours -- individual conferences for "Just Desserts" students
7:00 - 9:00
Lecture (required for "Just Desserts" students)
"Mugged in Moscow"
Post-Dictatorship Legal Reform in Russia, Spain, and Chile
Thursday
10:00 - noon
Death (and Dying)
The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Leo Tolstoy
Friday
10:00 - noon
Summation or Final Examination (if offered for credit)
If offered as a for-credit course, grades will be based on: a) class attendance (20%); b) class participation (20%); c) daily five-minute quizzes on the readings (20%); d) self-evaluation (20%); and e) final essay examination (20%).
