2025 Summer Schedule
Session A—Six Weeks: May 27–July 3
Session B—Ten Weeks: June 9–August 15
Session C—Eight Weeks: June 23–August 15
Session D—Six Weeks: July 7–August 15
Session E—Three Weeks: July 28–August 15
Session F—Three Weeks: July 7–July 25
Session 12W—12 Weeks: May 27–August 15
Quick List of courses:
Session A: 138, 157, 160, 170, 184
Session D: 102, 107, 150, 161, 182
Session A-Six Weeks: May 27–July 3
138: The Supreme Court & Public Policy, Kyle Deland, 4 units, Core (SS) or Area IV or V (This is an online course.)
This course examines a number of leading U.S. Supreme Court decisions in terms of what policy alternatives were available to the Court and which ones it chose. Prospective costs and benefits of these alternatives and who will pay the costs and who gets the benefits of them are considered. Among the areas considered are economic development, government regulation of business, national security, freedom of speech and discrimination. Readings are solely of Supreme Court decisions.
157: International Relations & International Law, Daimeon Shanks-Dumont, 4 units, Area IV or V (This is an online course.)
This course will evaluate and assess modern theories of international law. We will examine the work of legal scholars and look to political science and economics to see how these disciplines inform the study of international law. We will also examine a host of fundamental questions in international law, including, for example, why states enter into international agreements, why states comply with international law, and what kind of state conduct is likely to be influenced by international law.
160: Punishment, Culture & Society, 4 units, Alessandro De Giorgi, Core or Area I or II
This course surveys the development of Western penal practices, institutions, and ideas (what David Garland calls “penality”) from the eighteenth-century period to the present. Our primary focus will be on penal practices and discourses in United States in the early 21st century. In particular we will examine the extraordinary growth of US penal sanctions in the last quarter century and the sources and consequences of what some have called “mass imprisonment.” To gain some comparative perspective the course will also take up contemporary penality (or penalities) in Europe, South Africa, Central America, and Asia, as well as US penality and society at some earlier conjunctures.
In our analysis of penality, we will draw upon a range of social science theories with general relevance but with particularly rich application to the study of punishment. These theories provide the “tool kits” we will use to interpret and analyze multiplex implications of punishment and its relationship to changes in economic, social, and political relations associated with modernization and more recently the globalization of modern capitalism. The course will examine many examples of penal practices and the ideas associated with them including mass imprisonment, the death penalty, and restorative justice. In the last portion of the class we will examine the recent crisis in California’s juvenile prisons through the lenses both of different social theories and the examples of different national and historical penal patterns.
170: Crime & Criminal Justice, Nicole Lindahl-Ruiz, 4 units, Area I
This course introduces scholarly frameworks for thinking about crime and criminal justice, and traces through case law and scholarship the evolution of these earlier conceptions into today’s policy debates. It examines the scope and nature of crime in the United States from a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective, focusing on the uses and limits of the criminal justice system. The course will introduce concepts of criminal process and the main elements of the criminal justice system, including police, courts, and corrections. It will consider the main institutional features, problems, and critiques of the processes through which suspects are apprehended, tried, sentenced, and punished. Past and current trends and policy questions will be discussed.
184: Sociology of Law, Yen-Tung Lin, 4 units, Core (SS) or Area IV
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.
Session D-Six Weeks: July 7–August 15
102: Policing and Society, Eduardo Bautista-Duran, 4 units, Area I (This is an online course.)
This course examines the American social institution of policing with particular emphasis on urban law enforcement. It explores the social, economic and cultural forces that pull policing in the direction of state legal authority and power as well as those that are a counter-weight to the concentration of policing powers in the state. Special attention is given to how policing shapes and is shaped by the urban landscape, legal to cultural.
107: Theories of Justice, Cheri Kruse, 4 units, Core (H) or Area II or III or IV
This is a lecture course in political philosophy, focusing on liberal political theory which emphasizes the protection of individual freedom as against social demands, the maintenance of social and economic equality, and the neutrality of the state in conditions of cultural and religious pluralism. By studying mainly modern authors, we will attempt to understand the importance of these goals and the possibility of their joint fulfillment. Attention will be paid to the work of John Rawls, to the problem of moral and political disagreement, and the relation between “ideal” thinking about justice and thinking about justice in conditions of racial, gender, and class hierarchies.
150 - Intimate Partner Violence, Mallika Kaur, 4 units, Area I or IV
This course will investigate the phenomenon of intimate partner violence (also known as family violence, or domestic violence), by studying empirical evidence; theories of violence; and the disparate impacts on different communities. Through a trauma-centered and intersectional approach, students will be positioned to assess and analyze the responses by our legal system to this persistent and prevalent social problem.
161 – Law in Chinese Society, Kristin Sangren, 4 units, Area II
This course examines concepts that form the basis of the Chinese legal system, traditional theories and institutions of pre-1911 society, and the expression and rejection of the traditional concepts in the laws of the Nationalist period and the People’s Republic of China.
182: Law, Politics & Society, 4 units, Malcolm Feeley, Core or IV or V
This course explores the nature and function of law and legal systems. It asks: What is the nature of legal authority? Where does it originate? Why do we obey it? From where does law come? How are laws made? How do judges reason? It also focuses on law and conflict resolution: How do people bring cases to court? How do judges decide cases? What alternatives are there to the legal process? The course addresses basic question common to all legal systems, but draws most examples from Anglo-American legal systems. Finally, a traditional conception of law is that it is a timeless set of principles, yet society is always changing. So, how then does law change? How do courts respond to social change? To what extent can courts themselves bring about social change? And, if they try, what resources are at their disposal? Readings will be drawn from a variety of fields: philosophy, history, judicial opinions, and scholarly articles. If you are attentive to these materials and engage during lectures and discussion sections, you will become knowledgeable one of society’s most important institutions, the legal system. There are no prerequisites for this course. It should be of interest to Legal Studies majors; those thinking about going to law school; science majors; and visiting foreign students who are interested in getting a window onto an important institution—law– not only in the United States but everywhere—indeed anyone curious about one of society’s core institutions.
***NOTE: This course must have at least 22 students enrolled in order for it to continue. If the course has less than 22 students, it will be canceled, so have a back-up plan.***