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Philip Weinstein, the Alexander Griswold Cummins Professor of English Emeritus at Swarthmore College, will present the next in the ongoing program series "Islanders Read the Classics", with a six-part seminar "Fictions of the Law". This free seminar will be held on Wednesday evenings at the Katharine Cornell Theater, 51 Spring Street, Vineyard Haven.
"Fictions of the Law" will study three classic novels: Charles Dickens's Bleak House (1852), Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment (1866), and Franz Kafka's The Trial (1925). Participants are encouraged to read the books in advance, however it is not required. Copies of the books may be requested through your local CLAMS library. Those who prefer to read the same edition that Professor Weinstein will use in class may request the Norton Critical Edition of Bleak House, the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation Crime and Punishment, and the Muir translation of The Trial.
According to Professor Weinstein, the series' title--"Fictions of the Law"--should be understood in at least two ways. "On the one hand, we are reading three classic novels that circulate obsessively around the concept of the law (both criminal and civil). But each novel does this in its own ways, and the three of them differ starkly in approach, implication, and resonance. The other way to understand "Fictions of the Law" is to grasp that "law" itself is held up to an imaginative probing (is shown to be in disturbing ways fictional) in all three novels. You may come away from each novel wondering, afresh, what is law?"
In order to allow the library to prepare class materials and communicate with students, participants are encouraged to sign up in advance at the library, or register online.
Dates and reading assignments:
Wednesday, September 18th, 7pm
Charles Dickens, Bleak House, chapters i - xxxi
Wednesday, October 2nd, 7pm
Charles Dickens, Bleak House, entire book
Wednesday, October 23rd, 7pm
Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment, parts 1-3
Wednesday, November 6th, 7pm
Crime and Punishment, entire book
Wednesday, November 20th, 7pm
Franz Kafka, The Trial
Wednesday, December 4th, 7pm
Franz Kafka, The Trial
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