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Graduate Seminar
LES 590
Fall 1998
Tuesdays 6:00-9:30 pm
I would like to select a topic students are interested in studying. So
if any of these topics appeal to you, or if you have other suggestions,
please let me know what they are.
I am especially amenable to topics suggested by an organized group of
students who are excited about working in a particular area.
The seminar is designed for LES grad students but is open to others.
Here is a list of possible seminar topics. Most are topics I sometimes
talk about in class, have written articles
about, and address elsewhere on this website.
Which of these would you take?
Possible Seminar Topics for Fall 1998
- Conservative Efforts to Reclaim the Law (This was the topic
of the undergraduate closing seminar when I taught it in 1995.)
- The Politics of Law (using the new edition of David Kairys's
book by the same name, which presents critical legal studies perspectives
on law in general and a variety of substantive areas)
- Corporate Domination (transformation of law to meet corporate
needs; role of corporations in US society; corporate crime; efforts
to regulate corporate power; see related announcement)
- Law, Community, and the Individual (topic when I taught the
closing Graduate Seminar a few years ago; issues of communitarianism,
libertarianism, anarchism, social control & change. Is law necessary?
If we got rid of it, what might replace it?)
- Justice, Legitimacy, and False Consciousness (Why do people
obey the law? What kind of justice does/can the law seek? Is procedural
justice "real" justice? How does the law ensure legitimacy? Is legitimacy
a good thing? What do we believe about law that may not be true? Following
orders, civil disobedience, legal atrocities, etc.)
- Paternalistic Law and Victimless Crime (When should the law
intervene in people's lives? When shouldn't it? Is there really such
a thing as a victimless crime? Who counts as victims? What should we
have to put up with?)
- Springfield Law (identifying and analyzing components of law
and power in Springfield)
- Other topics raising legal, philosophical, and empirical issues, e.g.:
- Law and Insanity
- Law and the Death Penalty
- Law and Religion
- Non-specific Topic: We might build our topic together when
the semester begins, working at first from the daily newspaper as we
identify interesting issues and pursue them together
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