CENTER FOR LEGAL STUDIES

This course broadly provides a cultural analysis of true crime and pop culture. In particular, we’ll uncover why true crime stories seem to go viral (and why certain folks enjoy devouring these narratives). We will think intersectionally, analyzing how race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, and citizenship shape concepts of “victimhood” and “criminality,” as well as make certain true crime narratives more “popular” than others. Finally, we will develop a robust theoretical toolkit, combining an interdisciplinary range of perspectives from feminist anti-violence studies, critical criminology, literary criticism, and creative non-fiction journalism.

Description coming soon.

Law is everywhere. Law permits, prohibits, enables, legitimates,protects, and prosecutes. Law shapes our day-to-day lives incountless ways. This course examines the connections andrelationships of law and society using an interdisciplinary socialscience approach. As one of the founders of the Law and Societymovement observed, "law is too important to leave to lawyers."Accordingly, this course will borrow from several theoretical,disciplinary, and interdisciplinary perspectives (such as sociology,history, anthropology, political science, and critical studies) in order toexplore the sociology of law and law's role primarily in the Americancontext. The thematic topics to be discussed include law and socialcontrol; law's role in social change; and law's capacity to reach intocomplex social relations and intervene in existing normativeinstitutions and organizational structures.

Law is everywhere. Law permits, prohibits, enables, legitimates,protects, and prosecutes. Law shapes our day-to-day lives incountless ways. This course examines the connections andrelationships of law and society using an interdisciplinary socialscience approach. As one of the founders of the Law and Societymovement observed, "law is too important to leave to lawyers."Accordingly, this course will borrow from several theoretical,disciplinary, and interdisciplinary perspectives (such as sociology,history, anthropology, political science, and critical studies) in order toexplore the sociology of law and law's role primarily in the Americancontext. The thematic topics to be discussed include law and socialcontrol; law's role in social change; and law's capacity to reach intocomplex social relations and intervene in existing normativeinstitutions and organizational structures.

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 to design 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 LegalStudies 206/Sociology 206, a prerequisite for this course. 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. Prerequisite: LEGAL_ST206/SOCIOL 206. Taught with LEGAL_ST 207; may not receive credit for both courses. The topical focus of the course will be violence by the police and capital punishment in the United States. These topics will be explored with interdisciplinary readings and relevant legal cases. Students will be exposed to several research tools and research processes, as they also engage with material on police violence and capital punishment. In addition to shorter assignments, students will develop a research proposal on a topic of their choosing.

From superhero movies, daytime court shows, and true crime podcasts, "the law" is everywhere in our popular culture, even when we don't see it. In this course, we explore three interrelated questions: 1) how do people think about the law in their everyday life? 2) how does the law shape the production of popular cultures? and 3) how is the law represented in our popular cultures? This class focuses upon building the conceptual foundation and analytical tools for students to answer these questions for themselves.

Legal_St 276-0-20 "Crime, Punishment, and Social Control", Abigail Barefoot (Winter 2026)

This course offers a sociological introduction to the topics of crime, punishment, and social control with a focus on the United States. In this course, we will examine various perspectives on crime and social control with particular attention to how society defines criminality, how axes of social difference—such as race, class, gender, and sexuality—intersect with issues of punishment and social control, how we as a society decide how to deal with crime, what effects those decisions have, and how punishment and social control techniques have changed over time. Structured by those broad concerns, we will explore topics including policing, courts and the judicial process, prisons and mass incarceration, and surveillance.

How does legal status shape the lives of the 11 million Americans who are undocumented? This course develops the necessary historical context, as well as the conceptual tools to make sense of why people migrate, what shapes their incorporation, how does legal status intersect with other social differences, and how does legal status shape people’s experiences with key social institutions. This class focuses on developing your ability to work with social science data and historical sources, rather than regurgitating facts. The main components of the course are in-class participation and exercises and short papers.

What is education for? Who should it serve? Who decides? This class focuses on the political and legal contention in U.S. education, with a special focus on the Supreme Court decisions Brown and SFFA.

This course introduces students to the social, political, legal, and cultural history of immigration in the United States. In addition to exploring the history of southern and eastern European immigrants, it uses a comparative framework to integrate Latin American and Asian migrants into our understanding of immigration since the late nineteenth century. The course is an exploration of major themes in immigration history rather than a comprehensive examination. Issues students will consider include immigration law, acculturation, community, racial formation, victimization vs. agency, the transnational and international context of immigration, and competing notions of citizenship, among others.

This course examines the relationship between law and the distribution of power in society, with a particular emphasis on law and social change in the United States. Readings will be drawn from the social sciences and history, as well as selected court cases that raise critical questions about the role of race, gender, and sexual orientation in American society. Among the material we will examine are the documents made public in the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Students should be aware that some of this material is graphic and disturbing.

How are surveillance technologies shaping daily life and society, especially in terms of shaping what we think, see, and do? Building on the interdisciplinary field of surveillance studies, this course explores the intersection of policing, surveillance, and the law and raises questions about (in) security, civil liberties, control, and privacy. Topics will include The Patriot Act, biometrics, algorithm and predictive policing, and citizen surveillance. Students will also engage with the political, ethical, and methodological concerns that increased surveillance raises.

A corporation is its own person under the law, separate from those whom it employs or who may own its stock. How did this happen, and what does it mean for the humans who live and work alongside corporations every day?

This course investigates the structure of American government as laid out by the Constitution and defined by the Supreme Court.  It will also examine the many controversies over what, exactly, the Constitution means, who gets to decide, and how.

This course investigates the civil rights and civil liberties protected by the Constitution and defined by the U.S. Supreme Court—including privacy, equality, freedom of expression, and freedom of religion. In doing so, we will examine what, exactly, the Constitution means, who gets to decide, and how.

For the past thirty years, reality television – a genre of programming that aims to give us a view into the “unscripted” actions of our peers – has been a dominant force in U.S. entertainment.  Many of us watch these shows to relax, to turn off our critical thinking, and to immerse ourselves wholly into some manufactured drama and schadenfreude.  Considered as a cultural text, though, reality television can illuminate some profound truths: about how we decide what is right and wrong, about the tension between written and unwritten rules, and whether anyone can simply be “here to make friends.” 

In this course, we ask what reality TV can teach us about the nature of law.  We’ll read and discuss key works in the philosophy of law from H.L.A. Hart, Lon Fuller, Ronald Dworkin, Scott Shapiro, and others, and then see how their ideas stand up to the test of shows like Survivor, The Bachelor, FBoy Island, Ink Master, and Bachelor in Paradise.  By the end of the quarter, students will be able to explain the main currents of thought in legal philosophy with reference to elimination ceremonies, confessionals, alliances, and other fundamentals of reality TV gameplay.

This course explores the rise of the carceral state in the United with particular attention to ethnographic, sociolegal, feminist, queer, and transgender theoretical approaches to the study of prisons. The course centers on girls, women, and LGBT people’s experiences with systems of punishment, surveillance, and control. In addition, students will learn how feminist and queer activists have responded to institutions of policing and mass incarceration; investigate how they have understood prison reform, prison abolition, and transformative justice; and consider the political, ethical, and methodological concerns that policing, and mass incarceration raise.

The objectives in this course are: 1) to learn about international human rights conditions and refugee law mechanisms in the United States, through ongoing research related to asylum claims that will be presented at the end of the quarter in a trial; and 2) to become familiar with the diverse work of refugee-related professionals, including individuals who perform documentation-gathering, advocate for legal and public policy, and provide health care for asylum-seekers in the United States. In this class, you will be introduced to fundamental tenets of international human rights law and its domestic counterpart, U.S. asylum law. You will build upon this foundation for the remainder of the course by researching two asylum claims involving refugees from two countries, which you will present in mock hearings at the end of the course.

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.

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.

Legal Studies 398 is a two-quarter sequence (398-1 and 398-2) required for all Legal Studies majors. This seminar will expose 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. During winter quarter, students will complete their research projects and present their projects to the class. Students will meet to discuss shared readings, will workshop their paper drafts with one another, will prepare oral presentations based on their research, and will meet individually with the professor and with the Graduate Teaching Fellows.