Spring 2021 Class Schedule: Center for Legal Studies

Spring 2021 Class Schedule

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.

Course	Title	Instructor
LEGAL_ST 207-0-20	Legal Studies Research Methods (taught with SOCIOL 227)	Robert L Nelson
LEGAL_ST 207-0-20 Legal Studies Research Methods (taught with SOCIOL 227) Legal Studies Research Methods introduces students to research methods used in interdisciplinary legal studies, including jurisprudence and legal reasoning, qualitative and quantitative social science methods, and historical and textual analysis. The course is a prerequisite for the Advanced Research Seminar in Legal Studies, 398-1, - 2, and is intended to prepare students for the design of their own research project to be conducted in 398-1, -2. Through exposure to and engagement with interdisciplinary research methods on law and legal processes, the course will provide students with a deeper understanding of law in its historical and social context. The course will provide students with a set of research tools with which to conduct research on legal institutions. The course builds on content from Legal Studies 206, a prerequisite for 207. While part of the Legal Studies major sequence, the course will enrich the analytic skills of students from many fields who are interested in law or in interdisciplinary research methods. (Pre-Req: Legal_St 206 "Law & Society")
LEGAL_ST 333-0-20	Constitutional Law II (also POLI_SCI 333)	Joanna Grisinger
LEGAL_ST 333-0-20 Constitutional Law II (also POLI_SCI 333) Consideration of US Supreme Court decisions dealing with civil and political rights, including equality, freedom of speech and religion, and criminal procedures.
LEGAL_ST 376-0-21	Animal Law	Nicolette Bruner
LEGAL_ST 376-0-21 Animal Law Animals, both domesticated and wild, inhabit an uneasy space in American law. On one hand, they are legally property—possessions of a human or a state. At the same time, many animals benefit from legal protections that we do not grant to a rock or a robot. How did we develop our patchwork system of protections over animals? How do we determine which animals are protected and which are left as unambiguous “things”? And is there any way to regulate a nonhuman animal as something other than property? In this course, we will survey the regulatory status of animals in US law, both for domesticated (livestock and companionate) and wild animals, developing a practical (rather than idealized) understanding of the US’s current legal framework. This course has no prerequisites and assumes only a basic understanding of the US legal system. In addition to students in legal studies, this course is relevant for students interested in wildlife management, agriculture, history, and veterinary science, as well as any students who simply want to think critically about their cats, dogs, and other nonhuman companions.
LEGAL_ST 376-0-22	Gender-Based Violence (also GNDR_ST 332-0-21, SOCIOL 376-0-1)	Renee Shelby
LEGAL_ST 376-0-22 Gender-Based Violence (also GNDR_ST 332-0-21, SOCIOL 376-0-1) In the U.S., the dominant social response to gender-based violence centers policing, prisons, and other carceral practices. This course examines the intersecting power relations that shape experiences of violence and efforts to address it. We will focus on the politics and practices of criminalization and incarceration and struggles for gender, racial, and economic justice—including the prison-industrial complex; Whiteness and colonial violence; rape myths, law, and forensic technology; Black women's activism; and social movements shaped by carceral and anti-carceral feminism.
LEGAL_ST 376-0-30	Development of American Indian Law & Policy (also HISTORY 300-0-34, HUM 370-4-30)	Douglas Kiel
LEGAL_ST 376-0-30 Development of American Indian Law & Policy (also HISTORY 300-0-34, HUM 370-4-30) In this course, we will conceptualize Native peoples as nations, not merely racial/ethnic minorities. Students will learn about the unique legal landscape in Indian Country by charting the historical development of tribal governments and the ever-changing body of U.S. law and policy that regulates Indian affairs. We begin by studying Indigenous legal traditions, the European doctrine of discovery, and diplomatic relations between Native nations and European empires. We then shift our focus to treaty-making, the constitutional foundations of federal Indian law, 19th century U.S. Supreme Court decisions, and the growth of the federal bureaucracy in Indian Country. The course devotes considerable attention to the expansion of tribal governmental authority during the 20th century, the contemporary relationship between Indian tribes and the federal/state governments, and the role of federal Indian law as both a tool of U.S. colonial domination and a mechanism for protecting the interests of Indigenous communities.
LEGAL_ST 380-0-20	Refugee Crises and Human Rights (also POLI_SCI 380, INTL_ST 390)	Galya Ben-Arieh
LEGAL_ST 380-0-20 Refugee Crises and Human Rights (also POLI_SCI 380, INTL_ST 390) Development of international human rights. Comparative state and regional responses to forced migration due to war, conflict, and generalized violence. Humanitarian intervention, international law, and policy issues, such as gender-based violence, migrants at sea, and human trafficking.
LEGAL_ST 394-LK-20	Lawyering: Education and Practice	Seth Meyer
LEGAL_ST 394-LK-20 Lawyering: Education and Practice Attorneys are central to American life and popular culture, but the profession is undergoing dramatic change. For years, the supply of lawyers has vastly outstripped the demand for legal jobs and the resulting lawyer bubble has grown. Meanwhile, those who land law jobs have different challenges: recent surveys report many attorneys' growing disenchantment with their work and dissatisfaction with their lives. This seminar will examine the profession's multidimensional crisis. What changes occur in attorneys, both individually and systemically, emerging from law schools and finding their roles in the legal realm? Why is working within the most lucrative big firms now regarded by many as the pinnacle of private practice? What other options are available? It will explore life after law school, examining the disparate places law graduates might find themselves. The course invites prospective law students to consider their potential places, as individual lawyers, in what remains a noble profession. It also invites those students in other undergraduate disciplines who may be curious about trajectories open to them in this post-graduate academic and, ultimately, career field.