Fifty Years of The Legal Imagination: A Symposium in Honor of James Boyd White
September 28 - 29, 2023
Yale Law School
James Boyd White was one of the originators of the law and literature movement with his 1973 book The Legal Imagination. White's scholarship combined law and the humanities in new ways, asking law students to consider non-legal texts using the casebook method and to begin to grapple with the manner that law constrained and directed thought about social realities. Since the founding of Yale Journal of Law & Humanities, White has served as one of the faculty advisors for the journal.
This conference, organized by friends, colleagues, and students of White, and hosted by the Yale Journal of Law & Humanities, marks 50 years since The Legal Imagination's publication.
Symposium Schedule
9:00—9:30: Opening remarks by James Boyd White
9:30—11:00: Law, Literature & Poetics
Simon Stern
Yxta Maya Murray
Barry Sullivan
Naomi Mezey
Jeff Powell (moderator)
11:15—11:30: Break
11:30—1:00 pm: Something Sacred: Law and its relation to Legal Authority, Power, and Humanity
Cathy Kaveny
Jothie Rajah
Winni Sullivan
Nomi Stolzenberg
Robin West (moderator)
1:00—1:50: Lunch
2:00—3:30: The Future of Law & the Humanities
Guyora Binder
Cathy Kaveny
Robin West
Jeff Powell
Barry Sullivan (moderator)
3:30—3:45: Closing remarks by James Boyd White