Molly Hardy's Courses

Literary texts often help us to imagine how society ought to be. They  also help us to understand the struggles individuals undergo when faced with injustice. In this class, we will consider several questions about the ways literature and the law intersect, such as: How does literature help us to think critically about the law? What claims do they make about the ways the law should function in society? We will consider these questions through close readings of texts that address historical and contemporary legal issues. Our texts will reach across time and place to reflect the struggles individuals face in dealing with both national and international law.

In our first unit, we will closely read William Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. Using the techniques of formal literary analysis, we will consider the philosophical questions Shakespeare raises about justice, mercy, and responsibility. Formal approaches require critics to think carefully about matters of genre, structure, and language--not only what is said but how it is said.

In our second unit, we will practice cultural literary analysis to understand Jonathan Swift's Modest Proposal. We will consider how Swift employs satire to address injustice. Cultural literary analysis refers to approaches that investigate a work's inflections by and interventions in such historically contested categories as gender, race, ethnicity, class, religion, and sexuality. Specifically, we consider how he uses the metaphor of cannibalism to illuminate the inequality inherent in colonial legal apparatuses.

In our third unit, we will apply historical literary analysis to Mary Wollstonecraft's The Wrongs of Woman, or Maria. We will read Wollstonecraft's unfinished novel alongside selections from her treatise Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Historical approaches ask critics to think about literary works in relation to other historical events, developments, and discourses, whether literary or non-literary. Under this rubric, one might also consider the material forms and processes by which specific literary works were produced, published, circulated, and read. We will consider how Wollstonecraft uses literature to illuminate her polemics against the legal and social status of women in eighteenth-century England.

In our fourth and final unit, students will choose one of four research clusters, organized around four contemporary, international human rights issues -- the rights of refugees, the rights of prisoners, the rights of women, or the rights of children. Each cluster will be assigned a literary text and an international convention. Each cluster will develop an electronic map exploring the relationship between the literary text and the legal document.

TEXTS:

• The Merchant of Venice (Pelican Shakespeare Edition) by William Shakespeare # ISBN-10: 0140714626 # ISBN-13: 978-0140714623
• Vindication of the Rights of Woman and The Wrongs of Woman, or Maria (Longman Cultural Editions) by Mary Wollstonecraft # ISBN-10: 0321182731 # ISBN-13: 978-0321182739
• A Glossary of Literary Terms (9th edition) by M.H Abrams # ISBN-10: 1413033903 # ISBN-13: 978-1413033908

Every student must have these two texts. Please be sure to get the edition listed. These books are available at the UT Coop or on amazon. Once you decide on your research cluster for your final project, you will likely need/want to buy at least one of the following. There are no required editions for these texts, but I have linked to recommended editions. Your final project will ask you to analyze these texts in relation to the international human rights treaty listed below. Some of the groups will also need to attend the Rapoport Center at the UT law school for their Human Rights Happy Hour; I have listed the relevant events below.

• Refugee Boy by Benjamin Zephaniah # ISBN-10: 0747550867 # ISBN-13: 978-0747550860 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees
• Guantanamo: 'Honor Bound to Defend Freedom' by Victoria Brittain and Gillian Slovo # ISBN-10: 1840024747 # ISBN-13: 978-1840024746 Geneva Convention Lisa Hajjar at the Rapoport Center, Sept 28, 3.30-5pm Gillian Slovo at the Rapoport Center, Nov 9, 3.30-5pm
• Do They Hear You When You Cry by Fauziya Kassindja # ISBN-10: 0385319940 # ISBN-13: 978-0385319942 The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women
• A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah # ISBN-10: 0374531269 # ISBN-13: 978-037453126 Convention on the Rights of the Child Murhabazi Namegabe at the Rapoport Center, Oct 26, 3.30-5pm