This course introduces students to a range of modern and contemporary literature in conversation with theories of the law and of the state. Students will examine how relationships are drawn in literature between citizens and states in the contemporary world, and how studying the separate disciplines of law and literature can help us to understand them both more clearly. The course addresses human rights, nationalisms, and state formation and failure in literature from the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Prerequisite(s): ENGL 50 or ENGL 60.