The Rule of Law: Legal Studies and the Liberal Arts

FAIN: EH-50168-08

University of New England (Biddeford, ME 04005-9599)
Cathrine O. Frank (Project Director: March 2008 to June 2010)

A five-week summer institute for twenty-five college and university faculty in American jurisprudence from a humanities perspective.

The institute we are proposing will explore the meaning and consequences of the attachment to the rule of law. We will ask: What does it mean to live under the rule of law? What are the cultural conditions necessary for its possibility? And what are the distinguishing characteristics of the rule of law in the United States? The institute will engage with these questions and investigate the rule of law from the perspective of the humanities, emphasizing questions of interpretation, meaning, and value in a society, which, as Thomas Paine puts it, "law is king." At a time when scholars both in law schools and the liberal arts are turning to questions about relations between law, culture, and the humanities, this institute will also contribute to advancing the study of law as a discipline of the liberal arts.