Legal History Workshop – 6702

This seminar in legal history brings leading scholars from around the country to campus to enable students to engage with and contribute to field-defining work-in-progress. The first weeks of the semester are designed to provide a grounding in the field of legal history before approaching the work of the guest scholars. Students will also have the opportunity to pursue original research and writing projects of their own. The primary aim of the course is to develop tools for critically analyzing law by considering its nature and workings in historical perspective, both within and beyond the United States. The work presented this semester revolves around the themes of violence, carcerality, and human rights, encouraging us to think comparatively across time and space about the relationship between law, power, and justice. No previous knowledge of legal history is assumed.