Southern Law & Literature
LAW 620 | 2-3 Hours
Southern Law and Literature is designed to cover the development of southern literature from the midnineteenth century through the early twenty-first century. The course will emphasize the connection, perceived by several authors, between literature and the processes—verbal, psychological, political, economic—that make up “the law.” Students will visit the Jim Crow universe of written laws and unwritten racial customs. Students will take note, too, of the complex of rules and emotions known as “honor.” Students will see how people lived their lives, sometimes, outside the bounds of convention—yet somehow within the bonds of community. Students will see, finally, that the study of “law and literature” can illuminate both of these studies by providing a new perspective on each.