Antigone in China: Teaching American Law and Lawyering in Shenzhen

Abstract

This article recounts the very first week of classes at Peking University’s new School of Transnational Law. The author, who conducted 22 hours of instruction that week, grounded the introduction to legal practice in a comparison of one of the earliest and greatest court-room dramas, Antigone, which involves the right to bury a brother’s corpse, with Melfi v. Mount Sinai Hospital, a recent New York case involving the same issue.

After presenting a sketch of the history of law in China, the project is explained, with reference to the rich opportunities for analysis using such approaches as Positivism, Feminist Legal Theory, and Law and Literature. Reflections on the development of “rule of law” in China, recommendations for law school use of classical literature, and admonitions against Western arrogance conclude the work.

Keywords: international legal education, law and literature, China