| LAWP 222-01 |
Constitutional Law
Instructor: Stephanie Saxton
Course Description:
Cross-listed with POSC 220-01. This course provides an overview of Constitutional Law. We will first examine the roots of the American Constitution in English common law and existing political arrangements. We will cover the different ways scholars interpret and read the Constitution, and how social movements use the Constitution. The Constitution has been interpreted to the ends of inclusion or exclusion over time, and we will be guided by questions such as the legal scholar, Dahl, asked: "How democratic is the American Constitution?" This course provides an overview of Constitutional Law. We will first examine the roots of the American Constitution in English common law and existing political arrangements. We will cover the different ways scholars interpret and read the Constitution, and how social movements use the Constitution. The Constitution has been interpreted to the ends of inclusion or exclusion over time, and we will be guided by questions such as the legal scholar, Dahl, asked: "How democratic is the American Constitution?"
Prerequisite: 120, or permission of the instructor. This course is cross-listed as POSC 220.
|
03:00 PM-04:15 PM, MR
DENNY 204 |
| LAWP 290-01 |
Law and Society
Instructor: Yalcin Ozkan
Course Description:
Cross-listed with SOCI 230-01. This course is designed as an introduction to law and society scholarship. Drawing on interdisciplinary debates over law in everyday life, law and social inequality, and the politics of law, we will focus on the law's social, cultural, and political dimensions. Most notably, this course is organized around three major themes. The first topic concerns the theories and methods scholars deploy to account for the affinities between law and social life. We will consider how legal pronouncements and institutions shape and are shaped by our social norms, values, and relationships through the concepts of, among others, "legality," "legal consciousness," and "legal pluralism." The second part deals with the gap between the law on the books and the law in action. We will discuss when and how the law reinforces class, gender, and race-based inequalities despite its ever-present promise of justice. The final section examines the law as constitutive of the status quo and social change by calling attention to politics within and through the law. Thus, we will put as much emphasis on the law's ideological underpinnings as on how people resort to the law to envision and demand systemic change.
|
10:30 AM-11:20 AM, MWF
DENNY 204 |
| LAWP 290-02 |
Foucault
Instructor: Dan Schubert
Course Description:
Cross-listed with EDST 391-01, PHIL 261-02, SOCI 313-02, and WGSS 302-01. Michel Foucault was perhaps the most influential social thinker of the late 20th century. His arguments about the panopticon, historical epistemes, the medical gaze, governmentality, sexuality, and power now permeate the social sciences and humanities. He once wrote, "Do not ask me who I am and do not ask me to remain the same: leave it to our bureaucrats and our police to see that our papers are in order." These words will inform our semester of reading and discussing a variety of his primary works, including Madness and Civilization, Discipline and Punish, and The History of Sexuality, v.1, as well as some of his lectures and interviews. While our primary focus in this WID course will be Foucault's work itself, we will read a small selection of secondary literature that explicates and critiques some of his arguments.
|
01:30 PM-02:45 PM, MR
DENNY 204 |
| LAWP 290-03 |
Gender Identity & International Human Rights Law
Instructor: Mireille Rebeiz
Course Description:
Cross-listed with WGSS 302-02. This course examines the intersection of gender identity, gender violence, and international human rights laws. It explores the definitions of gender identities and their protections (or lack of) in main international human rights texts. Through the lens of gender and legal feminist theories, this course examines various human rights such as the right to equality and non-discrimination based on sex, the right to privacy and family life, the right to peace and clean environment. It studies cases of war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, and enforced disappearance of persons. This course offers a transnational legal perspective and gives examples from different legal traditions (common law and civil law) and different countries.
|
01:30 PM-02:45 PM, MR
BOSLER 208 |
| LAWP 290-04 |
Law and Punishment
Instructor: Stephanie Saxton
Course Description:
Courses in the area of Policy Studies. The content of the course will reflect the interests and expertise of faculty and the needs of students.
Prerequisite dependent upon topic.
|
01:30 PM-02:45 PM, MR
DENNY 212 |
| LAWP 290-05 |
Comparative Law
Instructor: Natali Chwalisz
Course Description:
Cross-listed with POSC 290-06. This course introduces the field of comparative law by examining major Western legal traditions. First, we consider civil and common law. Thereafter, we will critically analyze the interaction of colonial and indigenous legal systems and explore legal pluralism. The final part of the course considers how legal institutions in democratic nations address challenges related to social polarization and democratic backsliding, analyzing differences in their legal institutions and practices (such as approaches to free speech). The course aims to provide a broad understanding of global legal systems and traditions (both Western and non-Western) and equip students with comparative analysis skills.
|
01:30 PM-02:45 PM, MR
DENNY 311 |
| LAWP 400-01 |
Constitutions in Comparative Contexts
Instructor: Neil Diamant
Course Description:
Cross-listed with INST 390-01 and POSC 390-02. Blending law, comparative politics, religion, and history, this seminar looks at the wide variety of functions that constitutions fulfill in politics, economics, and society in democratic and nondemocratic countries. In the United States, we are accustomed to the idea that the Constitution structures political behavior by setting rules for, and limiting, executive and legislative authority. Through its Amendments, it also has provided a basis for the expansion of citizen rights. Looking at constitutions in comparative context, however, reveals a more complex story. In this class we will see that constitutions play many other roles: restructuring an economy; building, altering, and subverting democracy; legitimizing authoritarianism and providing a basis for rights litigation; teaching people about their rights and their obligations; and, through "constitutional participation," gathering intelligence on citizens' political views. We will also examine how Islamic, Buddhist, and civil law constitutional traditions do not accord constitutions the same power over politics and society that we do. Polities covered in this course include Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, China, Czechia, Ecuador, the European Union, India, Iran, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, the United States, and Venezuela.
|
01:30 PM-04:30 PM, W
DENNY 303 |