Tristram Shandy is the novel of scholasticism. Or, more precisely, it is the novel of casuistry. But rather than offering a mere critique of the grotesque of casuistry (a usual cliché of literature when confronted with law), it offers a very strange and very unexpected praise for casuistry, and for scholasticism generally. What Tristram Shandy allows us to understand is that what was considered grotesque in law actually is what should be regarded as its most precious treasure. But why is this so? The answer is simple: because it is through casuistry and scholasticism that law has succeeded in achieving what still remains the dream of literature—to consider the possibility of everything. Because casuistry and scholasticism are stubbornly formal, they allow lawyers to imagine possibilities, to play with hypotheses, that go way beyond the boundaries of social acceptability, artistic rules, or economic necessity. Law is the real world of imagination. Of this world, literature can only offer an approximation. And Tristram Shandy is the closest that literature can get.
Law and Literature, published triennially and edited by the faculty of the Cardozo School of Law of Yeshiva University and a board of international scholars, is one of only two journals in the country entirely focused on the interdisciplinary movement known as Law and Literature. The movement, which explores law-related literature and the literary value of legal documents, provides a unique perspective on how law and literature are mutually enlightening. Issues in private law and public law, restrictions on creative expression, gender and racial bias, hermeneutics (interpretative methodologies), and legal themes in works of literature are among the journal's regular topics. Law and Literature was previously published as Cardozo Studies in Law and Literature by the Cardozo School of Law from 1989-2001. Beginning in 2002, the journal appears as Law and Literature and is published by University of California Press.
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