Rehumanizing law a theory of law and democracy

Includes bibliographical references (p. [265]-280) and index.

Machine generated contents note: 1.Law and Narrative: Re-examining the Relationship -- Describing Law in Terms of Autonomy -- Narrative as the Basis of Law and the Humanities -- Shelley's Case, Part 1 Law of The Jungle -- Shelley's Case, Part 2 Silent Spring -- Law, Literature, and Narrative -- What Is Narrative? -- How Narratives Interact to Influence Legislation -- Text in Context -- What's Truth Have to Do with It? -- Whose Story to Believe? -- 2.Institutionalizing Narratives -- Narrative and the Normative Syllogism -- The Narrative Nudge -- When Narratives Clash -- Changes in Narrative, Changes in Law -- Law's Constraints: Generic or Precedential? -- Novelizing Law -- Resisting Narratives: Keeping the Outside Out -- Absorbing Narratives: Letting the Outside In -- What Law Can Learn from Literature (and History) -- 3.Law, Narrative, and Democracy -- The Rule of Law and Its Limits -- Toward a Democratic Rule of Law -- The Jury as a Structural Safeguard of Democracy -- The Democratic Role of Interpretive Communities -- A Study in Contrasts: The Rodney King and O.J. Simpson Juries -- Is Jury Nullification Democratic and within the Rule of Law? -- Some Thoughts on Democratic Interpretation -- 4.Narrative as Democratic Reasoning -- The Narrative Shape of Deliberation -- Law-as-Discipline -- The Problem with Appellate Practice and Appellate Opinions -- (Re)Introducing Narratives across the Profession -- Democratic Education, Practical Reason, and the Law.

Randy D. Gordon illustrates the bridge between narrative and law by considering whether literature can prompt legislation. Using Upton Sinclair's The Jungle and Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, Gordon shows that literary works can figure in important regulatory measures. Discussing the rule of law in relation to democracy, he reads Melville's Billy Budd and analyses the O.J. Simpson and Rodney King cases. --

This highly original and creative study reconnects the law to its narrative roots by showing how and why stories become laws. --Book Jacket.