Justice Abella - Reading List
Law and Literature: The Application of Law to Life
Justice Rosalie Silberman Abella
Understanding how law functions requires understanding the human context in which it is applied. One of the best sources for understanding people and human nature is found in literature, which puts life into words. This course will attempt to discern how literature can help us discover human universals and reveal how justice is the aspirational application of law to life. The impact on people of identity, moral choices, economic and social vulnerability, family and power relationships, are some of the realities we will explore through literature. Hopefully these explorations will help us widen and deepen our perspectives on how law is — and should be — applied in order to better achieve justice.
Reading List
Identity
Tom Stoppard, Leopoldstadt [Play]
Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye [Novel]
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man [Novel — Introduction and Chapter One]
Optional: August Wilson, The Piano Lesson [Play]
Thomas Mann, Tonio Kroger [Novella]
Yasmina Reza, Art [Play]
Moral Choices
Claire Keegan, Small Things Like These [Novella]
Julian Barnes, The Noise of Time [Novel]
Henrik Ibsen, An Enemy of the People [Play]
Optional: Klaus Mann, Mephisto [Novel]
Belonging and Exclusion
Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake [Novel]
Anthony Veasna So, “The Shop” in Afterparties [Short story]
Richard Wagamese, “Humility” in One Drum [Short story]
Katherine Anne Porter, “He” [Short story]
Optional: Lillian Hellman, The Children’s Hour [Play]
Philip Roth, “Defender of the Faith” in Goodbye, Columbus [Short story]
Power
Affinity Konar, Mischling [Novel]
Art Spiegelman, Maus [Graphic novel]
Varlam Shalamov, “Condensed Milk” [Short story]
Optional: Anton Chekhov, “The Head of the Family” [Short story]
Economic and Social Vulnerability
Miriam Toews, Women Talking [Novel & Movie]
Lynn Nottage, Ruined [Play]
Alice Munro, “Royal Beatings” [Short story]
Optional: Joyce Carol Oates, them [Novel]
Family
Aeschylus, The Oresteia [Play]
Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun [Play]
Optional: Kate Chopin, “Désirée’s Baby” [Short Story]