Humanities and the Law - A Kinship of Performance

Viewed from the inside, by someone who lives on its terms, the law can be seen as a field of life and practice, as a set of intellectual and imaginative activities, and, as such, far closer to the humanities than we normally imagine. The following essay is adapted from "A Visiting Scholar Considers The Law and the Humanities," which appeared in The Key Reporter of Phi Beta Kappa in summer 1998 as a partial report of the author's year as a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar. The selection here is a summary of a lecture the author delivered during his travels to eight colleges and universities throughout the United States. A more complete version will appear in From Expectation to Experience: Essays on Law and Legal Education, a collection of the author's essays being published this year by the University of Michigan Press.