View this year's course offerings.
These are the
courses
previously offered in conjunction with the Cultures of Law program.Fall 2014
Sociology of Law (SOC496) Seminar in Language and the Rhetoric of Law (ENGL584)Spring 2014
Dissent and Disruption in the Modern British Empire (HIST549A)Fall 2013
International Law (PS 386) Gender and Crime in the Early Modern World (HIST 200D) Britain and the Global Eighteenth Century (HIST 502B)Spring 2013
Language and the Law (ENGL584)Fall 2012
Queering Legal Cultures (GWS590) Political Economy: Its Theorists and Critics (PS572) States and Governance: Criminalizing States (ANTH515) Family, Gender and Law: Transitions, East and West (HIST200) Race, Empire and the Formation of American Political Culture (HIST572)Queering Legal Cultures
GWS 590Wednesdays 2:00-5:00 pmChantal Nadeau
This seminar explores the many forms of address that legal language can take, along with its complex and contradictory consequences for queer democratic participation and resistance. We will be looking at state laws, supreme court decisions, policy publications, literature and social commentaries—e.g. manifestos—and visually mediated treatments (websites, blogs, films) in which queer emerges as a way in and out of the legal spaces. Topics will include historical formations, current debates, and pending cases in both national and transnational contexts.The course is informed by feminist and queer approaches to subjectivity, citizenship, sovereignty, and immunity. Readings will included those by authors trained in legal studies, but also in philosophy, queer theory, feminist political thought, cultural theory, and postcolonial studies. The list of authors includes but is not limited to Ahmed, Amar, Bhabha, Butler, Barnard-Naudé, Derrida, Esposito, Foucault, Halley, Kauanui, Povinelli, Shah, Volpp as well as gay, lesbian, queer, and trans activists/theorists such as Spade, Stricker, and Noble.
Political Economy: Its Theorists and Critics
PS 572Mondays 1:30-3:30 pmM.A. Orlie
This advanced introduction to modern political theory will focus upon theorists and critics of political economy of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, including Hobbes and Locke; Rousseau and Adam Smith; Hegel and Marx and his heirs.In addition to these “primary” texts (see syllabus here), we will consult broad contextualizations, incisive commentaries, and paradigmatic theoretical elaborations of our main thinkers, their theoretical themes and the politics of economy of their time and our own (see “Context, Commentary, Elaboration” in syllabus).
States and Governance: Criminalizing States
ANTH 515 (503 Pending)Mondays 2-4:50 pmGilberto Rosas
Inspired by an observation made by Michel Foucault that it proves impossible to have a theory of the subject without a theory of sovereignty, this seminar explores questions of criminalities, pathologies, and violence, which have long haunted socio-cultural anthropology, in relation to the anthropology of the state and related questions of governance. The seminar thus appreciates “states” doubly so: as the rich interior world of the psyche, be it hailed, discursively produced, or some other formulation, and as the “the state,” a corpus of discourses and practices, which multiple critical traditions in the social sciences have long questioned and complicated. Influential theories of states and governance—including political economy, sovereignty, biopolitics, Empire and other post or anti-statist approaches—will be explored through ethnographies. These often involve interventions from axes of race, class, gender, and sexuality, all of which can be taken as sites of alternative knowledges and possibly powerful new potentialities.A few of the crosscutting questions raised in the course are: 1) How does each thinker approach questions of rule, governance, and the state? 2) Which authors have a theory of ideology or misrecognition and which do not? 3) Where do you situate each author’s position on the structure and agency debate? 4) How does each thinker approach “the subject” and/or “subjectivity”? 5) How do they imagine the state and related forms of power and governance in social life? 6) How is each apprehension of power territorialized? 6) Can these theorists’ ideas be applied or revised? Are they applicable to all societies? 7) Do they offer alternatives either theoretically, practically, or in terms of other phenomena?
Family, Gender and Law: Transitions, East and West
HIST 200Time TBAKenneth Cuno
The past two centuries have witnessed multiple changes in the way families are formed and dissolved, the way families are idealized, and the way law regulates family life - around the world. This course takes a comparative approach to some of these changes in Europe, America, the Middle East and Asia.
Race, Empire and the Formation of American Political Culture
HIST 572Time TBAFrederick Hoxie
For at least a century, American historians have argued that the political culture of the United States was shaped largely by forces originating inside the boundaries of the nation: wealth, political ideology, religious belief, or the consequences of the society’s social and demographic composition. This course will explore a different perspective. Instead of seeking the determinants of American political culture within the United States, the seminar will focus on two transnational phenomena whose impact was felt across the globe during the first 200 years of United States history. These twin (and related) phenomena—the emergence of ideologies of racial difference and the consolidation of vast, overseas empires—shaped the modern world, establishing in the process the context within which American leaders articulated their ideas and framed their political agendas. By exploring recent scholarship on the linkages between these global phenomena and the formation of U.S. political culture (comprised of political ideas, practices and institutions), the seminar will seek a fresher and more inclusive understanding of the history of American public life.
Language and the Law
ENGL 584Spring 2013 (times TBA)Dennis Baron
The history of language and law from an American perspective, considering how legal texts make meaning; how lawyers, judges, and ordinary people interpret that meaning; and how governments, schools, and businesses create policies that privilege one language over others by making it official, or that protect minority-language and minority-dialect speakers.The law depends on our common understanding of language to frame and interpret everything from statutes and contracts to witness statements and judicial rulings. Yet because language is inherently unstable and ambiguous, the law must struggle to assign clear meaning to language, sort out ambiguity, and resolve opposing readings of the same text. For example, in Washington, DC, v. Heller, 9 highly-educated Supreme Court justices came to two completely different interpretations of the Second Amendment (the one about the right to bear arms).
In addition to considering various aspects of legal meaning-making, we’ll look at instances where language becomes the subject of the law: First Amendment cases from the Alien and Sedition Acts to George Carlin’s “7 Dirty Words You Can’t Say on TV” to the USA Patriot Act; privacy issues involving language and technology; and attempts to designate English as an official language at the federal, state, and local levels, as well as official language policies in schools and workplaces. We’ll consider as well various efforts to protect the rights of minority-language and minority-dialect speakers in the US, the EU, the former Soviet countries, and elsewhere in the world.
Readings—all of them available online--include legislation, court cases, and analyses of various language and law issues. In addition to the customary seminar paper, students will write short essays on each of the course units and do class presentations on issues of their choice.
International Law
PS 386Fall 2013 (M, W 9-10:20)Paul F. Diehl
This course analyzes the concepts and bases of public international law. The first part of the course explores the “operating system” components of international law, namely how the law sets the general procedures and institutions for the conduct of international relations. In effect, international law provides the mechanisms for establishing rules, outlines the parameters of interaction, and provides the procedures and forums for resolving disputes among the relevant actors in international interactions. Topics in this section of the course include sources, actors, and institutions of international law. The second part of the course focuses on international law as a “normative system.” This signifies the specific standards and rules by which international relations are supposed to be conducted. If the operating system designates the “structures” (in a loose sense) that help define the global governance system, then the normative element provides the specific laws or policies that are the subjects or products of those structures. Topics in this section of the course include the use of force, human rights, and environmental protection.
An understanding of public international law requires both an in-depth knowledge of the basic rules and principles of the legal system, but also its political bases. Accordingly, students will become familiar with the basics of public international law, much as they would in a similar law school class on the subject; the main differences are less depth of coverage, the elimination of some topics, and less emphasis on the case method approach in this course. Yet, unlike a law school course, attention will also be directed to the political conditions and processes that lead to the creation, evolution, and enforcement of international law. In addition, although this course is taught from a "globalist" point of view, special attention is given to the application of international law in the United States.
Introduction to Historical Interpretation: Gender and Crime in the Early Modern World
HIST 200DFall 2013 (T, R 11-12:20)Dana Rabin
What can the study of crime and punishment tell us about the past and about our present? This course will explore the range of behavior considered criminal in the early modern world (1450-1815) and set it beside a study of gender to examine the ways in which definitions of crime intersected, shaped, and were shaped by notions of femininity, masculinity, and gender. We will consider the importance of legal codes to early modern conceptions of order and lawfulness and study how different legal systems enforced the law. The class will also analyze systems of punishment and how theories about punishment varied depending on religious belief and cultural values. Using a comparative approach we will study crime and gender in early modern Europe, colonial America, the Caribbean, the near east, and Asia.
Britain and the Global Eighteenth Century
HIST 502BFall 2013 (M 3-4:50)Dana Rabin
In the eighteenth century Britain's national identity was intertwined with an "imperial destiny" as was its economic and daily life. This course interrogates Britain's national and imperial history in the long eighteenth century (1600-1830). The readings, cultural studies of geography, race, sex, gender, religion, and a special emphasis on law, will explore the global eighteenth century and the formation of the British empire. Our geographical range will include the British Isles, India, East Asia, North America, and the Caribbean. We will also read theoretical works that inform studies of race, gender, and culture in and beyond eighteenth-century Britain. The readings will draw from history, anthropology, literary, and cultural studies. The interdisciplinary approach will allow us to engage various theoretical and methodological perspectives as we explore this topic.
Dissent and Disruption in the Modern British Empire
HIST 549ASpring 2014 (T 5-6:50)Antoinette Burton
This course focuses on dissent and disruption across the British empire from c. 1830s to 1930s. Its main target is the rise and fall narrative of the anglo-imperium and the developmentalist histories that have tended to flow from it, as against the more abrasive and striated terrain of indigenous persistence and anti-colonial protest, whether direct or indirect. The syllabus mixes primary and secondary readings, expository and theoretical works and literary with more conventionally historical texts. Knowledge of imperial history in various quarters is welcome but not required.
Seminar in Language and the Rhetoric of Law
ENGL 584Fall 2014 (Th 3:00-4:50 pm)Dennis Baron
Test Case: In District of Columbia v. Heller (554 U.S. 570 [2008]), nine highly-educated Supreme Court justices, who spend their entire professional lives dissecting the meaning of language, came to two completely opposite interpretations of a single 27-word sentence, the Second Amendment (the one about the right to bear arms). How the case was argued in the lower courts, in the Supreme Court, in the media, and in the scholarly legal literature both before and after the decision, offers a highly-visible, and still controversial, example of legal rhetoric at work.
After looking at Heller, we’ll consider several other important aspects of language, rhetoric, and law, centering on the First Amendment (from the Alien and Sedition Acts to George Carlin’s “7 Dirty Words You Can’t Say on TV” to the USA Patriot Act); and the right to communication privacy (from the telegraph and telephone to the digital age); and the communication rights and limitations of teachers and students, employers and employees, reviewers and the reviewed (minority language rights, limits on expression, SLAPP suits—Selective Lawsuits against Public Participation). We’ll consider the impact of digital technologies on intellectual property concerns (Digital Rights Management, wrap contracts, piracy and copyright infringement). Finally, we’ll consider some topics in forensic linguistics, including the rhetoric of arrest (there are 400+ variants of the Miranda warning), interrogation, and testimony. Readings—all of them available online—include legislation, court cases, and analyses of various language and law issues. Students will write a seminar paper and do a class presentation on a relevant issue of their choice.
After looking at Heller, we’ll consider several other important aspects of language, rhetoric, and law, centering on the First Amendment (from the Alien and Sedition Acts to George Carlin’s “7 Dirty Words You Can’t Say on TV” to the USA Patriot Act); and the right to communication privacy (from the telegraph and telephone to the digital age); and the communication rights and limitations of teachers and students, employers and employees, reviewers and the reviewed (minority language rights, limits on expression, SLAPP suits—Selective Lawsuits against Public Participation). We’ll consider the impact of digital technologies on intellectual property concerns (Digital Rights Management, wrap contracts, piracy and copyright infringement). Finally, we’ll consider some topics in forensic linguistics, including the rhetoric of arrest (there are 400+ variants of the Miranda warning), interrogation, and testimony. Readings—all of them available online—include legislation, court cases, and analyses of various language and law issues. Students will write a seminar paper and do a class presentation on a relevant issue of their choice.
Sociology of Law
SOC 496Fall 2014 (TR 11-12:20 pm)Anna-Maria Marshall
This course will introduce you to some of the major issues and debates in the area of sociology of law by examining the social and political organization of the legal system. We begin by studying the way that the legal system actually operates – from the development of a dispute to full-blown litigation in courtrooms. We then consider the role of law in sustaining – and dismantling – structural forms of inequality. Finally, we study the relationship between law and social change, examining the processes through which law interacts with other social forces under changing social, political and cultural conditions.