Just based on what we've done in class so far, I am fairly interested in researched the intertextuality of themes of Justice vs. Law. That being said, I'm fairly certain that it is a considerably broad theme, especially taking into account how long law has dominated human history; with that in mind, there should be a way to narrow down the topic while maintaining relevance to the assigned readings. Taking these into account, I have drafted a clear topic for the final project: the debate of law vs. justice in nonfiction-based democracies.
Democracy as a form of governance was a fairly recent breakthrough, with the Athenian direct democracy being the progenitor of the system. Following the decline of Greek civilization, democracy showed little prominence until modern history, with the United States spearheading the spread of democratic systems across the globe. This should, in theory, narrow the temporal scope of the topic to 500-400 BCE and 1700-2021 CE. It would be interesting to discover stories about law and justice within democracies between these two time periods, but it would be unlikely, or at least I would assume so given that democratic ideas, let alone actual democracies, were far and in-between in that time period.
Regarding the medium, I am conflicted between writing a traditional essay and using Neatline; if I were to write an essay, it would probably be business as usual, but if I were to use Neatline, I could show where, geographically and chronologically, where each story was written, as well as a description of each story and its relation to the theme of justice vs. law. At present, I am leaning more towards Neatline than an essay, as it inherently allows for a form of presentation that I believe better fits the subject matter.
That being said, I am moderately concerned about how I would go about finding these stories. For most research excursions, I use the MLA database, which details a great variety of articles, journals, reviews, etc., but searching for the theme I have selected likely wouldn't elicit clear results. I'd probably consult Kelci on this, since it is somewhat unfamiliar territory for me, and I can't say finding scholarly sources for book themes entirely makes sense in this context to me.
I appreciate your effort to narrow this topic so that it isn't too broad, and I like your focus on democracy as the context for texts that challenge unjust laws. You could focus on particular laws that were overturned or at least fundamentally challenged by literary texts (for example, slavery comes to mind as one example). We will definitely provide help with the research and the location/selection of texts. Are you interested in examples where democracy is improved, or where democracy is undercut by this conflict?
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