LAW455
Legal Seminar: Literature, Rhetoric & the Law
(Enman-Beech)
Prerequisite courses:
Prerequisite for:
Instructor(s): Professor Jack Enman-Beech
Course credit: 3
Method of presentation: Seminar
Teamwork:
METHOD OF EVALUATION:
Three written comments on the readings and three responses to comments, totaling 40%. At students’ option, these can be done in the form of short in-class presentations. Participation mark of 10%; a final essay-exam worth 50%.
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
Law includes argument forms that are used to co-ordinate relationships, structure disputes and, if things go to court, contest and decide cases. Rhetoric is the study of argumentation, how we convince, how we use words to do things. Rhetoric implicates all of the humanities: being effective is not just about logic or formal precision, but also about language choice, metaphor, narrative, character, genre, and feeling. This course will explore topics in law and the humanities, with particular focus on rhetoric. Film, performance, and queer theory will also show up. We will read analysis within these fields as well as primary texts in and out of law—reported arguments and cases and treatises, but also novel excerpts or short stories, poems, and film. Legal subject matter approached may include the regulation of public spaces, families/kinship, statutory and contractual interpretation, legal fictions, digital contracts, consent in the context of sexual assault, doctrines of exception (eg duress in contract or in crime), and how to go to lunch with a friend.
SPECIAL COMMENTS:
Description updated 2025-26. Please contact the instructor for any specific questions you may have related to this particular course section.
REQUIRED TEXTS (IF ANY):
Texts will be online.