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The study of literature is especially well-suited to address the cross-discipline and cross-territorial concerns of cultural narratives that invoke core legal, social, and political concepts in a globalised world. By focusing explicitly on the techniques and texts of the cosmopolitan field of ‘Law and Literature’, this course is designed to appeal to students interested in critical themes and issues in the popular imagining of the legal shared by the disciplines of English Literature and Law through consultation with the School of Law and Justice, the School of Arts and Communication, and the global law and literature movement.

This course examines a range of popular cultural and theoretical texts that discuss and portray law, justice, and related matters. By bringing together theory, law, and culture, students will have the unique opportunity to engage in a comparative evaluation of what law means to wider society, what law does outside of traditional legal modes, and how law envelops us all, with consequences ranging from the brutal to the brilliant and the weird. Using a number of authoritative, critical, and popular texts, students will be encouraged to develop their skills in close reading, comparative analysis, and critique. The course will enable students to become engaged readers of legal and theoretical narratives.

On completion of this course students should be able to demonstrate:

1. an advanced academic and professional literacy, recognising narrative techniques (in stories and film) and their application to legal and theoretical themes in a range of texts;
2. effective discipline-based skills in classifying and critically interpreting historical and theoretical concepts and debates;
3. the application of skills related to Objectives 1 and 2 in the interpretation and understanding of literature and culture in both oral and written form;
4. ethical research and enquiry skills by adhering to principles of academic integrity;
5. utilisation of creative skills and processes in developing innovative approaches to identified critical issues;
6. evidence of reflective practice by developing the final research essay directly based on feedback from earlier assessment.