LASC would like to invite you to six lectures on the interdisciplinary field of law and literature by Prof. Laura H. Korobkin,  Associate Professor of English and Director of Graduate Studies at Boston University and Fulbright Visiting Professor at KU Leuven and Lessius.

Professor Korobkin holds a  Law degree from the prestigious Harvard Law School and a Ph.D. in English from Harvard University. Her many publications testify to her expertise in the ‘interface’ between these two disciplines and her added focus on persuasive discourse and pragmatics will certainly be of interest to many students and colleagues.

The lectures will be given weekly beginning on Tuesday, 17 February at 5.30 pm. and continue each Tuesday till 24th March included. The venue is the Lessius American Studies Center. Attendance is free but please register for the whole series or separate lectures via email at: peter.flynn@lessius.eu

Law and American Narrative: Six Lectures on the Interrelations of American Fiction and the American Trial Process

Part I: Narrative Battles in the Courtroom

1. The Juror as Reader in American Trial Process: Trials as Storytelling Contests.( 17 February)

2. Sentimentality on Trial: the adultery trial of Henry Ward Beecher. (24 February)

3. Slave Law infiltrates American Fiction: Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the case of State v. Mann. (3 March)

Part II: Legal Fictions

4. The reader as juror in Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita. (10 March)

5. The Victim as Criminal in Herman Melville's Billy Budd and Richard Wright's Native Son. (17 March)

6. Self-Defense and Self-Effacement in Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. (24 March)