***Always check the OSOC for the latest most up-to-date info.***
R1B: Law, Religion & Culture, K. Heard, TTh 8:00-9:30am, 4 units, Area N/A
**This course is lower division and will not count towards the major.**
This course explores the complex relationship between law and religion, law and culture, and religion and culture. By using philosophical texts, legal decisions, and ethnographic investigations, it seeks to complicate liberal democratic understandings of how religions operate, what constitutes “secular law,” and whether “culture” can be an appropriate synonym for faith. Possible subjects to be touched on in this course include: the legal consciousness of Islamic women in the western world; the controversies surrounding the passage of both state- and federal-level Religious Freedom Restoration Acts (RFRAs); the use of “cultural claims” to support the public reintroduction of practices deemed at odds with democratic values; the regulation of mind-altering drugs as part of religious practice; reproductive health care; religious dress in places of work; school prayer; and much more. As this is a Reading and Composition course, students will be expected to complete a series of short reflection-based essays as well as a longer research paper.
39D: Current Political & Moral Conflicts & the Constitution Frosh/Soph Seminar, Pomerantz, M 10am-12:00pm, 2 units, Area N/A
**This course is lower division and will not count towards the major.**
We will read Supreme Court cases, as well as political and legal commentary from across the political spectrum, and consider not only the opinions of the Justices, but also why they hold those opinions. We will seek to discover the way in which courts use authority and craft law.
100: Foundations of Legal Studies, Perry, MWF 2-3, 4 units, Area I or II or III (New Plan: Core, H,SS)
This is a liberal arts course designed to introduce students to the foundational frameworks and cross-disciplinary perspectives from humanities and social sciences that distinguish legal studies as a scholarly field. It provides a comparative and historical intro to forms, ideas, institutions, and systems of law and sociological ordering. It highlights basic theoretical problems and scholarly methods for understanding questions of law and justice.
103: Theories of Law & Society, Lieberman, MWF, 9-10am, 4 units, I or II (New Plan: Core or Area II, H,SS)
Surveys leading attempts to construct social theories of law and to use legal materials for systematic social theorizing, during the period from the mid-eighteenth century to the early twentieth century. The course considers major discussions of such themes as the relationships between law, politics, society and economy; the connection between historical change and legal change; the role of law in the processes of social integration and social discipline; and the distinctive elements of legal ordering in the modern west.
109: Aims & Limits of Criminal Law, Perry, MW 4-5:30pm, 4 units Area III or IV (New Plan: Area I)
This course focuses on the analysis of the capacity of criminal law to fulfill its aims. What are the aims of criminal Law? How are they assigned relative priority? What principles can be identified for evaluating the effort to control disapproved activities through criminal law?
140: Property & Liberty, Brown, TTh 12:30-2:00pm, 4 units, Area I or III (New Plan: Area II or III)
The course will explore the relation between property law and limits of liberty in different cultures and at different times. The course will cover theories of property law, slavery, the clash between aboriginal and European ideas of property, gender roles and property rights, common property systems, zoning, regulatory takings, and property on the internet. Readings will include legal theorists, court cases, and historical case studies.
145: Law & Economics I, Cooter, MW 4-5:30 pm, 4 units, Area I or III (New Plan: Core (SS) or Area III)
This course uses the concepts and tools of economics to analyze problems in law, focusing on contracts, property, torts, and legal process. Students will be expected to apply the analysis to broad array of legal issues.
153: Law & Society in Asia, Stern, TTh 12:30-2pm, 4 units, Area II (New Plan: Area II or V *****COURSE CANCELED*****
This course offers a comparative perspective on law and legal institutions. Looking comparatively helps shed light on our own system and question what is “normal” or “natural.” From what it means to be a lawyer to notions of what is “just” or “fair,” courts and dispute resolution outside the U.S. can be both very different and, at times, surprisingly familiar. After an overview of concepts and classic approaches to the study of law and society, the course will explore these differences and similarities in three Asian settings: China, Japan, and India. Topics include lawyers, illicit sex, and environmental protection, to see how each country’s history, political structure, values, and interests shape how legal issues are defined and play out. *****COURSE CANCELED*****
158: Law & Development, O’Connell, MWF 1-2:00pm, 4 units, Area II (New Plan: Area III or IV)
Focusing on developing countries, this course considers the relationship between legal institutions and rules – including informal and traditional ones – and development – defined by different actors by economic growth, education, health, or a wide spectrum of freedoms. It examines efforts by national leaders, international organizations, foreign aid agencies, and NGOs to “reform” law to promote development, along with the resistance and unplanned consequences that often ensue.
163: Adolescence, Crime & Juvenile Justice, Zimring, 4 units, TTh 11:00-12:30pm, Area III or IV (New Plan: Area I)
This course examines the premises, doctrine, and operational behavior of juvenile courts, particularly in relation to the commission of seriously anti-social acts by mid-adolescents. Topics include the history of theories of delinquency; the jurisprudence of delinquency; the incidence and severity of delinquency; police response to juvenile offenders; the processes of juvenile courts and youth corrections; and reforms or alternatives to the juvenile court system.
171: European Legal History, McClain, 4 units, F 8-9am, Area II (New Plan: Area V)
Main themes in European legal history: topics include classical Roman law, Justinian’s codification (6th century A.D.), the medieval revival of Roman law in Italy and elsewhere, medieval canon law (the law practiced in the ecclesiastical courts), the jus commune (amalgam of Roman, canon and indigenous law that prevailed in Europe until the modern period), the law merchant, the beginnings of the English common law, early modern developments in continental Europe and England, nineteenth-century codification, twentieth century developments.
182: Law, Politics & Society, Feeley, 4 units, TTh 8:00-9:30am, Area III or IV (New Plan: Core or Area IV or V, SS)
This course examines the theory and practice of legal institutions in performing several major functions of law: allocating authority, defining relationships, resolving conflict, adapting to social change, and fostering social solidarity. In doing so, it will assess the nature and limits of law as well as consider alternative perspectives on social control and social change.
184: Sociology of Law, Morrill, 4 units, TTh 3:30-5pm, Area III or IV (New Plan: Core or Area IV, SS)
This introductory course explores major issues and debates in the sociology of law. Topics include theoretical perspectives on the relationship between law and society, theories of why people obey (and disobey) the law, the relationship between law and social norms, the “law in action” in litigation and dispute resolution, the roles of lawyers, judges, and juries in the legal system and in society, and the role of law in social change. The course will examine these issues from an empirical perspective.
190.1: Surveillance, Privacy & the Law, James Rule, 4 units, Tu 3-6pm, Area I or IV(New Plan: I or IV)
This seminar will examine tensions surrounding efforts to observe, monitor, track and record personal information. Such tensions between privacy interests and those of surveillance will be understood as universal elements of social life, from intimate face-to-face interactions to government surveillance activities like those of the NSA. Of special interest will be the repercussions of such tensions in the realm of law—including law-enforcement, civil liberties, tort law, and privacy codes aimed at drawing the line between privacy “rights” and prerogatives of surveillance.
190.2: Making Empire: Law and Colonization in America, Tomlins, W 8-10am, 4 units, Area II (New Plan: II, V)
Making Empire is a reading and discussion seminar. Our goal is to become acquainted with the origins, development, and expansion of European settlement and expansion on the North American manland beginning in the 16th century. We will concentrate on the impulses (commercial, ideological, and racial) that drove European settlement, the migrations (both voluntary and forced) that sustained it, and the political and legal “technologies” that supplied it with definition and explanation. We will pay attention throughout to the definition of territory, to civic inclusion and exclusion, and to the relationship between economic activity and claims of manifest imperial destiny.
190.3: Law, Politics & Literature, Shapiro, 4 units, W 3-6pm Area II (New Plan: Area II or V)
This course will examine some key issues of politics through the close reading of a number of literary works.
H195A: Honors Seminar, Edelman, 4 units, M 10:00am-12:00pm, Seminar Room 2240 Piedmont, Area N/A (New Plan: Area N/A)
Students contemplating an Honors thesis must enroll in LS H195A in the Fall of their senior year, which is aimed specifically at preparing them for the task. The seminar will cover such important subjects as selecting a thesis topic that is both interesting and capable of investigation within the limits of a single semester, developing and implementing an effective research strategy, and completing the writing. UCB GPA 3.5 Legal Studies GPA 3.5 required.
During the following Spring semester, students who continue with the Honors Program (LS H195B) will complete a substantial research paper under the supervision of a faculty member.
To obtain a Course Entry Code, please contact Lauri, the Undergrad Advisor via e-mail to express your interest in enrolling and once Spring grades have posted officially to the transcript, she will send out codes.