(Papers from the panel will be published as a symposium in Vol. 22, issue 2 of the Yale Journal of Law and Humanities [2010])
The “literary turn” in legal studies manifests in many ways in our legal discipline and practice. Be it with the birth of the study of law and literature in the 1980’s, the growing attention to narrative theory and storytelling in the law in the 1990’s, or the “cultural turn” in legal studies in the 21st century (as some scholars have called the cultural analysis of law), reasoning from literature seems commonplace. And yet it feels still marginalized in legal studies, as not “really law,” and lacking in the core persuasive power that legal argumentation and doctrinal analysis have. This panel has been put together to wrestle with what it means to “reason from literature” and to contest the boundaries between legal reasoning and literary logic.
Business Meeting at Program Conclusion.