Collegium Institute's Fall 2020 Legal Humanities Fellowship welcomes a small group of fellows from the University of Pennsylvania to participate in six seminar-style discussion sessions. The discussions will be facilitated by academics and professionals in law, history, and philosophy. Building on last year's topic of law and religion, this semester's module, Legal Humanities: Foundations and New Frontiers, will cultivate reflection on the Legal Humanities project as a whole: how can the law — its substance and practice — help us and those we engage to become more fully human? This Fellowship is coordinated by Dr. Benjamin Brady, the current Faculty Director of Legal Humanities Program.
Please see below for more information about the Fall 2020 curriculum and fellows.
Fall 2020 Fellowship Schedule and Curriculum
September 23 | Introduction — The Limits of Meritocracy
Facilitator: Dr. Benjamin Brady (Faculty Director of Legal Humanities Program and Law Fellow, American Law Institute)
Reading: Excerpts from The Meritocracy Trap: How America’s Foundational Myth Feeds Inequality, Dismantles the Middle Class, and Devours the Elite by Daniel Markovits
September 30 | Ad Fontes: Renaissance Humanism and the Legal Profession Today
Facilitator: Dr. James Hankins (Professor of History, Harvard University)
Reading: James Hankins, “The Italian Humanists and the Virtue of Humanitas” and “Francesco Patrizi of Siena on Virtuous Citizenship in a Republic”
October 7 | Hamilton as a Lawyer
Facilitator: Dr. Kate Brown (Assistant Professor of History, Western Kentucky University)
Reading: “A Letter from Phocion to the Considerate Citizens of New York,” “Report on the Petition of Christopher Saddler” by Alexander Hamilton, and The Federalist Papers: No. 32
October 14 | Law and Letters: Humanizing the Legal Profession Through Literature
Facilitator: Gerald Russello (Editor, University Bookman)
Reading: Gerald J. Russello, “Introduction to Christopher Dawson, ‘America and the Secularization of Modern Culture’” and Christopher Dawson, “America and the Secularization of Modern Culture: The Smith History Lecture 1960”
October 21 | Law and Letters: Piers Plowman and the Practicing Lawyer
Facilitator: Dr. Emily Steiner (Professor of English, University of Pennsylvania)
Reading: Emily Steiner, “Introduction” in Reading Piers Plowman and “Chapter 10: William Langland” in The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Law and Literature
October 28 | Conclusion: Religious Language and the Law
Facilitator: Dr. Samuel L. Bray (Professor of Law, University of Notre Dame)
Reading: There was no assigned reading for the final session.
Legal Humanities Fellows
Andrew Figueiredo
Andrew Figueiredo is a 2L at Penn Law. He was born and raised in Kansas and attended McGill University for undergrad. His interests are diverse, but he especially enjoys reading about politics, Catholic Social Teaching, and of course antitrust law.
Genie Song
Genie has previously worked for the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board, a self-regulatory organization with oversight by the Securities Exchange Commission. She has also served as a consultant for Ascension Health, a faith-based health system, and earned an MBA from Yale University. She is a first-year M.L. student.
Layla Murphy
Layla Murphy is a College sophomore studying History with a minor in Law and Society. She was raised all over the world, but calls Egypt home. Her interest in legal history was sparked by the first class she took at Penn: History of American Law Pre-1877. She is interested and inspired by the role of law in crafting the human experience, especially in those ways that are not visible to the blind eye. She also loves crosswords and cooking zucchini.
Noah Zimmerman
Noah Zimmermann is a 1L at the Law School. He holds a BA from Furman University in Philosophy and Politics and International Affairs and a Master in Theological Studies (MTS) from Duke Divinity School.
Aristea Slikas
Aristea is the executive assistant to the chief of Endocrinology in the Perelman School of Medicine. She has a degree a Master in Education and a Bachelor in Arts.
She has been pursuing a Master of Law degree and particularly enjoy constitutional and regulatory law.
James Griffen
James is a writer on subjects related to medieval European and early American history, and director of a men's choir in the Philadelphia area specializing in medieval religious music such as Gregorian chant. To further the choir's works, he founded the Durandus Institute: an organization dedicated to the study and execution of worship rites rooted in medieval tradition. His interest in law began through the study of Latin (a language of both liturgical music and canon law) and in his service as a reserve soldier in the US Army, for which he worked as a paralegal in the Judge Advocate General Corps. His studies in military justice included questions touching on humanity and moral conduct--a few examples being just war doctrine, rules of engagement, and humane treatment of noncombatants and prisoners of war. He would be happy to broaden his knowledge of legal humanities in discussion with both students and experts in the field of law and the humanities.
Sofia Wawrzyniak
Sofia Wawrzyniak (C'24) is an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania, pursuing International Relations and Computer Science, with a minor in East Asian studies. Her academic interests surround the intersection of technology and politics, with special focus on the emerging field of cybersecurity and privacy law. First introduced to the Collegium Institute through spiritual life at Penn, she now hopes to engage in discussion surrounding legal foundations and their implications in an increasingly complex society.
Douglas Griswold
Douglas Griswold is a former student of Dr. Cheely who wishes to expand his ways of thinking about law and its role in society.
Jamie Baum
Born and raised in Brooklyn, Jamie studied at the Yeshivah of Flatbush, Midreshet Lindenbaum, Yeshiva University Stern College and worked at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, before attending Penn Law. During college, Jamie was a NCAA championship fencer and graduated with a degree in Psychology, Business Management, and Judaic Studies in 2017. In addition to her studies, Jamie is an active member of the Jewish Law Students Association, Penn Law Israel Society, Penn Law and The Arts, Public Speaking Society, and the Federalist Society.
Louis Galarowicz
Louis Galarowicz is a senior in the College studying Philosophy and History. He is delighted to see that the first reading is from Markovits' Meritocracy Trap; last year he could not stop myself from talking about it to other Penn students and he’s excited to discuss it with everyone.
William San Pedro
William San Pedro is from Miami, Florida, and is currently a junior in the College of Arts of Sciences, studying diplomatic history and philosophy. He takes a special interest in Catholic political philosophy, particularly the point where religion and law intersect. William is currently doing preliminary research for a thesis on diplomacy and espionage in Elizabethan England during the reign of Pope Pius V.