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lawyers and literature
Assignment Archive
August 20. 2007. First Reading Assignment
 Frank Kafka, "Before the Law," in The Penal Colony: Stories and Short Pieces (New York: Schocken, 1961)(Willa & Edwin Muir trans.) [on-line text] [Instructor's Note (and web resources)]
Jeremy Gilman, "The Real World of Law School" [online text] [Instructor's Note]
Biographical Note--Jeremy Gilman: Jeremy Gilman is a partner in the Cleveland law firm, Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan & Aronoff LLP. For more Gilman stories, published by Professor Elkins in the Legal Studies Forum, see: ["Light Banter: The Faculty at Lunch"] ["Game Day"] ["Catskills on Court Street"]
Jeremy Gilman was born in Brooklyn, New York, 1955; admitted to the Ohio Bar in 1983 and the Florida Bar in 1985. He received his A.B. in 1979 from Columbia College, and his J.D. in 1983 from Case Western Reserve University where he was Editor of the Case Western Reserve University Law Review, 1982-1983. His practice areas include: Complex Litigation; Business Litigation; Commercial Litigation; Securities Litigation; Class Actions; Bankruptcy Litigation; Administrative Litigation; Health Care Litigation; Advertising and Marketing; Unfair Competition.
"Centaurs," in J.S. Marcus, The Art of Cartography 17-23 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991) [reprinted in Jay Wishingrad (ed.), Legal Fictions: Short Stories About Lawyers and the Law 97-100 (Woodstock, New York: Overlook Press, 1992)] [Instructor's Note]
Biographical Note--J.S. Marcus: [Bio note]
August 27. 2007. Lowell B. Komie's Law Student Stories
"The Interview," "Spring," "The Ice Horse," in Lowell B. Komie, The Legal Fiction of Lowell B. Komie 1-11, 13-21, 23-35 (Chicago: Swordfish Chicago, 2005) [Instructor's Note]
Biographical Note--Lowell B. Komie: Lowell B. Komie is a Chicago attorney and writer. He received his B.A. from the University of Michigan in 1951 and his J.D. from Northwestern University in 1954. His legal practice is now located in Deerfield and he is presently at work on a third novel. For an interview of Komie conducted by James R. Elkins in 2000, see: [Interview] [Norbert Blei's 2003 Interview]
Professor Elkins' Reading of Komie: Meditation on the Odd Lives We Live, 31 Legal Stud. F. 885 (2007)[on-line text]
Professor Louis Harmon's Reading of Komie: Illuminating the Dark: The Stories of Lowell B. Komie and the Pursuit of Meaningful Work, 31 Legal Stud. F. 851 (2007) [on-line text]
A Short Story Inspired by Komie's Stories: Ruthann Robson, The Satisfactions of Kimberly Bascomb: An Intervention into the World of Lowell Komie's Fictional Women Lawyers, 31 Legal Stud. F. 835 (2007) [on-line text]
Komie commentary: The Elkins and Harmon essays & Robson story are part of a "tribute" to Lowell Komie and his short stories. The Legal Studies Forum issue in which the essays and story appears is available for $10. See my secretary, Karen Feathers, Rm. 117.
The reading's for this week are rather light--a rare occasion--so you may want to use this time to read some of the Komie stories assigned for next week, and to begin reading the assigned novels.
September 10. 2007. Lowell B. Komie's Lawyer Stories
Please let me know by today the group you have created for your work on the novel and your group presentation in November.
Please reading the following stories in Lowell B. Komie, The Legal Fiction of Lowell B. Komie (Chicago: Swordfish Chicago, 2005):
"Skipping Stones" [pp. 61-68][on-line text]
"Mentoring" [pp. 47-54][on-line text]
"The Cornucopia of Julia K." [pp. 69-76][on-line text]
"The Kite Flyer" [pp. 231-238][on-line text]
"The Balloon of William Fuerst" [pp. 55-60][on-line text]
"I Am Greenwald, My Father's Son" [pp. 77-87][on-line text]
"The Honorable Alicia Beauchamp" [161-173][on-line text]
"Podhoretz Revisted" [pp. 225-230][on-line text]
"Ash" [175-186][on-line text]
In reading the assigned Lowell B. Komie stories:
 Select the Komie story you find most intriguing or perplexing, or simply the story you want to discuss in class.
Select a passage (of no more than a paragraph) which captures or encodes some significant aspect/element/meaning of the story. Be prepared to read this selection in class, and offer some brief (impromptu) comments on what draws you to the passage and the significance of the passage in reading the story as a whole.
[On working from "passages" consider this comment by David Bartholomae and Anthony Petrosky: "A reader who needs to have access to something in the essay [story] can use simply memory aids. A reader can go back and scan, for one thing, to find passages or examples that might be worth reconsidering. Or a reader can construct a personal index, making marks in the margin or underlining passages that seem interesting or mysterious or difficult. A mark is a way of saying, 'This is something I might want to work on later.' If you mark the selections in the book as you read them, you will give yourself a working record of wat, at the first moment of reading, you felt might be worth a second reading." David Bartholomae & Anthony Petrosky, "Introduction: Ways of Reading," in David Bartholomae, Writing on the Margins: Essays on Composition and Teaching 272-288, at 277-278 (Boston: Bedford/St.Martin's, 2005)]
Komie: Instructor's Note
September 17. 2007. All Manner of Strangeness
"Weight," in Margaret Atwood, Wilderness Tips 163-178 (New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell, 1990)
Biographical Note--Margaret Atwood: [Margaret Atwood: Writing Philosophy] [Margaret Atwood (1939- )] [Resume -- Canadian Poets]
"Puttermesser: Her Work History, Her Ancestry, Her Afterlife," in Cynthia Ozick, The Puttermesser Papers 3-19 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997)[The story also appears in Cynthia Ozick, Levitation: Five Fictions (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982)]
Herman Melville, "Bartleby, the Scrivener" [online text (alternative site)] [Instructor's Note]
Biographical Note--Herman Melville: [Herman Melville -- The American Academy of Poets] [The premier web resource for Bartleby research is: Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-Street]
September 24. 2007
Leslie Hall Pinder, On Double Tracks, 31 Legal Stud. F. 1043-1111 (2007)[an edited version of Leslie Hall Pinder, On Double Tracks (Toronto: Lester & Orpen Dennys Ltd., 1990)] [on-line text][The issue of the Legal Studies Forum in which this excerpt from the novel appears has been provided to you.]
Biographical Note--Leslie Hall Pinder: Pinder grew up in Saskatchewan. She studied English at the University of Saskatchewan and Dalhousie University. After traveling in Europe, she moved to Vancouver and obtained her law degree at the University of British Columbia. She has been a lawyer in Vancouver since 1977. Pinder published her first novel, Under the House, in 1986. Her second novel, On Double Tracks, was published in 1990.
 Elkins on discovering Pinder's work Pinder|Elkins correspondence
"The Death of Ivan Ilych," in Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilych and Other Stories 95-156 (New York: New American Library, 1960) [Instructor's Note]
Biographical Note--Tolstoy: [Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)]
John William Corrington, A Day in Thy Court, 26 Legal Stud. F. 336 (2002) [on-line text]
Biographical Note--John William Corrington: [A Biographical Essay on Corrington by James R. Elkins][A Bio-bibliographical note on John William Corrington][An Interview of Corrington]
Recommended Reading: John William Corrington, Logos, Lex, and Law, 26 Legal Stud. F. 709 (2002) [on-line text]
October 1. 2007
John William Corrington, Every Act Whatever of Man, 26 Legal Stud. F. 246 (2002) [online text]
John William Corrington, The Actes and Monuments, 26 Legal Stud. F. 181 (2002) [online text]
October 8. 2007: A Discussion about Writing
Ruthann Robson, Notes from a Difficult Case, in Creative NonFiction (2003)[You can pick up a copy of the Robson essay from Karen Feather, Rm. 117, or email me and I'll send you a copy by email].
Assuming you have endless free time, you might also want to read a 'conversation' I carried on with Professor Robson [Robson-Elkins: A Coversation] & an article I wrote about her work [A Poetics--of and for--Ruthann Robson]. I had known Professor Robson for several years when I discovered that she is also a poet, and, I think an awfully good one. For a selection of her poetry, drawn primarily from her collection, Masks, published in the Legal Studies Forum, see: poetry. Robson, drawing on one of the characters in Lowell Komie's "The Cornucopia of Julia K.," wrote an original story titled, "The Satisfactions of Kimberly Bascomb: An Intervention into the World of Lowell Komie's Fictional Women Lawyers." [Robson's Komie story]
A law student writing about "Lawyers and Literature" (the course you are now taking): Deidre Purdy, Lawyers and Literature: As My Mother Lay Dying, 22 Legal Stud. F. 293 (1998) [on-line text]
If you have course writings you'd like for me to peruse, please send them along.
In conjunction with your class presentations, please prepare (as a group, or as compiled as individual writings of members of your group), a 5-10 page narrative about your engagement with the book you are presenting. This narrative may draw on your class presentation, but it need not. (I expect something other than a copy of a Power Point presentation.)
October 15. 2007
Rachel Blau DuPlessis, f-words: An Essay on the Essay, 68 (1) Am. Literature 15 (1966)
Recommended:
An Innovative Law Review/Essay Style Writing: Marie Ash, Zig-zag Stitching and the Seamless Webb: Thoughts o "Reproduction" and the Law, 13 Nova L. Rev. 355 (1989)
Latest Version of the John Hay, fragments/composite poem: John Hay/Fragments
Two Elkins Essays: A Poetics--of and for--Ruthann Robson & Meditation on the Odd Lives We Live, 31 Legal Stud. F. 885 (2007)[on-line text]
October 22. 2007. No scheduled class.
October 29. 2007: Class Presentations
Albert Camus, The Fall (New York: Vintage Books, 1956) [Instructor's Note]
Biographical Note--Albert Camus: [Albert Camus]
Presenters: Lindsey Fund, Laureen Thompson, Jessica Haun & Megan Farrell
November 5. 2007: Class Presentations
Pete Dexter, Paris Trout (New York: Penguin Books, 1988) [Instructor's Note]
Presenters: Allison Minton, Ashley Saville-Amtower, Grace Crickenberger, Julie Kidd
November 12. 2007
Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird (New York: Popular Library, 1960) [Instructor's Note]
Biographical Note on Harper Lee: [Harper Lee] [Bio -- Chicago Public Library] [Short Bio]
Presenters: Rob Blosser, Jenny Feathers, John Bowman & Kace Legg
November 19. 2007: Thanksgiving Break. No classes.
November 26. 2007: Our final class session.
Walker Percy, The Second Coming (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1980) [Instructor's Note]
Biographical Note Walker Percy: [Walker Percy] [ Walker Percy (1916-1990): A Brief Biography]
Presenters: Maria Almase, Sara Wood, Jed Nolan, Mara Schafer
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