To read course descriptions, click on the course titles below. To look up class meeting days and times please go to CAESAR. Note that courses are subject to change.
LEGAL_ST 206-0-20 Law and Society (also SOCIOL 206)
Law is everywhere. Law permits, prohibits, enables, legitimates, protects, and prosecutes citizens. Law shapes our daily lives in countless ways. This course examines the connections and relationships of law and society using an interdisciplinary social science approach. As one of the founders of the Law and Society movement observed, "Law is too important to leave to lawyers." Accordingly, this course will borrow from several theoretical, disciplinary, and interdisciplinary perspectives (including sociology, history, anthropology, political science, and psychology) in order to explore the sociology of law and law's role. This course introduces the relationship between social, cultural, political, and economic forces on the one hand, and legal rules, practices, and outcomes, on the other. We focus on several important questions about law including: How do culture, structure, and conflict explain the relationship between law and society? Why do people obey the law? Why do people go to court? How does the legal system work? What is the role of lawyers, judges, and juries? How does law on the books differ from law in action? How do social problems become legal ones? How can law create or constrain social change?
LEGAL_ST 330-0-20 U.S. Refugee Policy & Localities (also POLI SCI 330)
Comparative understandings of refugee policies in liberal democracies and their relation to constitutional and human rights. Street level bureaucracy, constitutional governance, federalism, integration, refugee resettlement policy, citizenship and belonging.
LEGAL_ST 340-0-20 Gender, Sexuality and the Law (also GNDR ST 340)
This course is intended as a survey of how law has reflected and created distinctions on the basis of gender and sexuality throughout American history. We'll look at legal categories of gender and sexuality that have governed (and, often, continue to govern) the household (including marriage, divorce, and custody), the economy (including employment, property, and credit), and the political sphere (including voting, jury service, and citizenship). Throughout the course, we will examine the relationship between legal rules and social conditions, and discuss how various groups have challenged these legal categories. Taught with GNDR ST 340.
Comparative history of Latinos, Asian Americans, African Americans, and white ethnics in the 20th-century United States; role of law, politics, and society in shaping and being shaped by racial and ethnic categories.
LEGAL_ST 350-0-20 Psychology and the Law (also PSYCH 340)
This course examines the application of psychology to law, including topics such as the insanity defense, criminal profiling, eyewitness testimony, and interrogation. Pre-requisite - PSYCH 110
LEGAL_ST 356-0-20 Constitutional Challenges in Comparative Perspective (also POLI_SCI 356)
Constitutional controversies and resolutions in liberal democracies. Constitutional traditions and governance, rule of law, legitimacy and authority in diverse societies, human rights, social transformation.
LEGAL_ST 398-1-20 Advanced Research Seminar (Majors Only)
Legal Studies 398-1,2 is a two-quarter sequence required for all Legal Studies majors. This seminar exposes students to a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches to law and legal institutions; over two quarters, students will develop their own research paper on a topic of interest.
