Academic

Law, Literature and Business Part I

By Gordon Smith, Christine, Hurt, Vic Fleischer, Fred Tung, Lisa Fairfax, David Zaring

Thanks to the Glom for inviting me back! As Gordon indicated, I?ve got quite a bit going on this summer, and I?m hoping it will prove fruitful blogging fodder.

First off, yes, I?m teaching Law, Literature, and Business. The backstory: my generous associate dean, Paul Kurtz, okayed a course with this title even though he knew that I knew that I had no idea what I was going to teach in it. Every third year, we at Georgia teach a 2-credit ?floater course? on a subject that flows from our research. This topic has been on my mind for a while. I hope the course will work as kind of pre-reading, to get me up to speed to be able to write an article next summer.

As I started reading (ok, skimming) my way through law and lit articles and books, I realized that the subject could be broken into at least 2 strands, one focusing on content?trials and lawyers in literature (i.e., To Kill a Mockingbird)?and one on applications of literary theory. I?ll focus on the content side in this post.

The content approach is problematic for the transactionally-minded. I just haven?t found many deal lawyers or transactions depicted in literature. The dazzling exception that proves the rule? Herman Melville?s Bartleby, the Scrivener. Subtitled A Tale of Wall Street, it is close to ideal: short, beautifully written, wry, and weird. The narrator is a transactional lawyer, and although the tasks of scriveners are obsolete, I suspect that for many a corporate associate the drudgery of Bartleby?s life, and the narrator?s choice never to ?address a jury or in any way draw down public applause?, but instead ?do a snug business among rich men?s bonds, and mortgages, and title deeds,? may resonate.

At the suggestion of colleague Paul Heald, I read Richard Power?s novel Gain, which traces the history of a soap making empire from family business through public company conglomerate, interspersed with a very personal narrative of a woman?s struggle with cancer that may have been caused by chemicals from the self-same soap company. It?s not as anti-corporate America as that juxtaposition suggests, and it nicely captures the drama and desperation of business-building. It's on the list.

But novels tend to be long, and I want to cover several depictions of business in literature. So I decided to assign at least 2 movies. One seems to have to be Oliver Stone?s Wall Street. The other? I?m currently thinking about the Insider (which I haven?t seen yet), or Glengarry Glen Ross.

Am I wrong about the dearth of transactions and business lawyers in novels? Are there movies I?m missing? Please tell me.

Unless, of course, you?d prefer not to.

Full post as published by Conglomerate on July 01, 2008 (boomark / email).