미국에서의 법과 문학 운동 = The Law and Literature Enterprise in America

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This paper overviews the contemporary American scholarship on the relations between law and literature. Along he way, it will try to evaluate the success the particular efforts within the enterprise, with a broader goal in mind: seeking the feasibility of making a better society through the concerted actions of the diverse intellectual sections. Crudely divided, the enterprise has two parts, law in literature and law as literature. The first part involves the appearance of legal themes or the depiction of legal actors or processes in literary works. The second part, somewhat more amorphous, involves parsing such legal texts as statues, constitutions, judicial opinions, and certain classic scholarly treaties as if they were literary works. Originally having started with a pastime, fun-oriented in approach, since mid 1980s`, the gravity of the enterprise has shifted to a more serious as approach. The (re)emergence of this enterprise since 1970s` is largely attributable to the changes in the American academism including the reign of the law & economy enterprise in American law schools. Although a multitude of the intellectuals, both from literary and legal circles, have joined in this movement, the contribution of the two leading figures, James B. White and Richard Weisberg, have been unproportionately conspicuous.