B027722 - ANGLO-AMERICAN LAW

English

The course is aimed at analysing the Law and Literature movement by focusing on the Anglo-American experience.

1. For STUDENTS REGULARLY ATTENDING CLASSES:
A. The exam will be based on class notes and on the materials that will be handed out or be available through the Moodle platform.
B. At the beginning of the course, attending students will be assigned some books belonging to the repertoire of English or American literature that will be analyzed, exposed and discussed in thematic workshops in the second part of the course.

2. STUDENTS WHO DO NOT ATTEND CLASSES should prepare for the exam using the following materials:
A. A book, selected in the following list:
- J. Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813)
- V. Woolf, A Room of One’s Own (1929)
- H. Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird (1960)
- T. Morrison, The Bluest Eye (1970)
- P. Roth, The Human Stain (2000)
- K. Stockett, The Help (2009)
- I. McEwan, The Children Act (2014);

B. The following materials, available online (in open access or in the university library by making a search thanks to OneSearch library system):
- James Boyd White, Establishing Relations between Law and Other Forms of Thought and Language, in Erasmus Law Review, 2008, Vol. 1, No. 3, pp. 3-22, in Public Law and Legal Theory Working Paper Series Working Paper No. 113/2008 (in SSRN, The Social Science Research Network Electronic Paper Collection: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1142827);

- James Boyd White, The Cultural Background of the Legal Imagination, in Public Law and Legal Theory Working Paper Series Working Paper No. 180/2010 (In SSRN, The Social Science Research Network Electronic Paper Collection: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1535599);

- James Boyd White, Law as Language: Reading Law and Reading Literature, in Texas Law Review, Vol. 60, No. 3, 1982, pp. 415-445;

- the following chapters of the book of Robert A. Ferguson, Practice Extended: Beyond Law and Literature, Columbia University Press, 2016: cap. II, The U.S. Constitution as Literature (pp. 17-34; CODA, How to read a Courtroom Novel (pp. 265-278).

3. For students who do not attend classes and already added Diritto Anglo-Americano (Italian language) into their student career, the exam should be prepared on the basis of the following materials:

A. A. Sansone, Diritto e letteratura, Giuffrè, Milano, 2001, pp. 1-4, 15-19, 34-43, 68-71, 73-142 (available at copisteria "Centro Stampa il Prato", via Carlo del Prete, 38/r);

B. J. Boyd White, Quando le parole perdono il loro significato, Giuffrè, Milano, pp. I-XIX, 1-8, 13-45, 255-296, 349-408;

C. In addition, one of the following books:
- J. Austen, Orgoglio e pregiudizio (1813);
- V. Woolf, Una stanza tutta per sé (1929);
- H. Lee, Il buio oltre la siepe (1960);
- P. Roth, La macchia umana (2000);
- I. McEwan, La ballata di Adam Henry (2014).

The course aims at offering to the students an in-depth analysis of some legal aspects that are typical of the Anglo-American area, applying the Law and Literature movement methodology. The course intends to foster the capacity to observe and reflect on law, adopting a vision wider than the traditional one and a perspective not limited to the technical legal point of view.
By the analysis of narrative texts, the students will develop the capacity to understand the legal phenomena, adopting the conceptual framework, the interpretative instruments and the methods of evaluation that are typical of literature.
Drawing attention to the legal literary features, the students will be able to better understand the Anglo-American legal culture. The students will also be able to contextualize within the historical, political and social framework several specific aspects of the Anglo-American legal culture, such as the role of the judge and of the legal process, the legal position of women and of ethnic or religious minorities, as well as the importance of ethical and moral questions, such as privacy, end-of-life, death penalty and condition prisoners.

"Constitutional law I" and "Civil law I" shall be already taken. "Comparative legal systems" is strongly recommended.
This requirement does not apply to Erasmus+ students and other exchange students.

In the first part, classes are taught through lectures and in the second part through thematic workshops. These workshops will be organized as forums on the Moodle platform, whose results will be presented and discussed in class.
Namely, at the beginning of the course, students will be divided into groups and assigned some books belonging to the repertoire fo English or American literature. Within each group students will be asked to support or oppose the thesis emerging from the book. To this end, students will use the Moodle platform, discussing and comparing te different positions in a common space (forum). The debate will result in a final report that will be presented and discussed in class, and that will be evaluated bu the teacher.
This teaching method intends to encourage active participation in discussion, group working and critical reflection. The analysis of a topic starting from a book discussed in a forum widens the possibilities of argumentation and get the students accustomed to managing a constructive and correct dialogue.
Moreover, the course syllabus, powerpoint slides and other materials that are essential to complement the knowledge transmitted in class will be available to attending students through the Moodle platform.

In order to attend the course, students shall subscribe to the Moodle platform by the first week of classes.
The enrollment in the Moodle platform is necessary in order to access to the course syllabus, sources and materials and to participate in the second part of the course.

Oral examination usually consists of three questions.
The first question deals with a broad topic, in order to allow the student to show her knowledge as well as the ability to connect the different parts of the program using the comparative method.
The second question might be narrower and deals with a different part of the program.
The third question deals with a book which has been chosen among those listed under A) or, for attending students, the final report elaborated during the thematic workshops. This question aims to verify the actual capacity of analysis and of application of the interpretative methods learned.
For attending students, also the active contribution and participation in class and in the thematic forums, the final report and its presentation in class, together with the capacity to make appropriate reference to the relevant materials, will be evaluated.

The first part of the course intends to examine the Law and Literature movement, since its American origins, at the beginning of the XX century, with J. Wigmore and B.N. Cardozo, and its development, especially since the Seventies of the last century, with J. Boyd White and J. Allen Smith.
In the first part of the course, two perspectives of the Law and Literature movement will be analyzed: Law "as" literature and law "in" literature. The first considers the literary aspects of the legal text, questioning if the legal text could be analyzed and interpreted applying literary interpretative methods. The second aims at highlighting the legal aspects which have been taken into consideration by some classical and modern narrative works of English and American origin. The narrative works will be, for example, The Merchant of Venice by W. Shakespeare, Bleak House and The Pickwick Papers by C. Dickens, Pride and Prejudice by J. Austen, the articles of V. Woolf, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by L. Carroll, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by M. Twain; but also contemporary books by P. Roth, McEwan, J. Franzen,, K. Stockett, T. Morrison.
In the second part of the course, thematic workshops will be organized using forums in the Moodle platform, whose results will be presented and discussed in class.
The topics will be selected at the beginning of the course, after having defined the number of attending students. The topics could be, for example: the legal process, the judge and the legal narrative; Cyber Data, privacy, artificial intelligence and new information technologies; the legal position of women; the condition of particular ethnic or religious minorities, also as a consequence of the English colonialism.