Law'S Stories - Narrativw And Rhetoric In The Law

This important volume brings together an exceptional group of well-known figures in law and literary studies to take a probing look at how and why stories are told in the law and how they are constructed and made effective. How do legal stories gain or lose their impact? What are the uses and risks of storytelling as opposed to arguments and theories? Why is it that some stories - confessions, victim impact statements - can be excluded from decisionmakers' hearing? What rhetorical strategies do judges use to gain persuasiveness or to claim authority to impose certain stories on reality? 'Law's Stories' opens new perspectives on the law - looking at it not as rules and policies but as stories, narrative exchange, performances, interpretation. It provides a compelling encounter of law and literature, seen as two wary but mutually animating fields.