Legal Imagination: Criminals and Punishments Across Literature

This seminar will focus on the legal, moral, religious, social, psychological, & political dimensions of crime, blame, shame, & punishment as discussed in major works of Russian literature considered against Western cultural background. The 1st part of the course will compare & contrast visions of justice in Eastern & Western Europe and emphases on divine versus human justice. The 2nd part will move to the psychology of the individual person, the criminal. Part three of the course will focus on the state institutions of criminal justice. Students will discuss from their perspectives both the literary & moral critiques of legal justice.