Legal History Workshop
The Legal History Workshop is designed as a forum in which faculty and students from both the Law School and the History Department can discuss some of the best work now being done in the field of legal history. Every other week, an invited speaker will present his or her current research for discussion. This year the theme of the Workshop will be Conservative Legal Movements from 1950 to the Present. Speakers will include Reva Siegel, the Nicholas deB. Katzenbach Professor of Law at Yale Law School, and Thomas Sugrue, the David Boies Professor of History and Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, as well several other scholars of law, the social sciences and humanities writing about this topic. In the week prior to a given speaker's presentation, the class will meet as a group to discuss secondary literature relevant to understanding and critiquing the speaker's research. Students will then read the speaker's paper in advance of the following week's workshop presentation. Special Instructions: Students are required to write a brief response to each speaker's paper. There will be a total of four speakers, and thus four papers. Guidance will be provided concerning how to frame these response papers, which will be due every two weeks - i.e., on the day before speaker presents and students will receive "W" writing credit. Students taking the course to receive "R" research credit are required to write a research paper on a legal history topic that they choose (in consultation with the professor). After the term begins, students accepted into the course can transfer from section (01) into section (02), which meets the R requirement, with consent of the instructor. Students taking the course for R credit can take the course for either 2 or 3 units, depending on the paper length. Enrollment will be limited to 30 students -- 20 from SLS who will be selected by lottery and 10 from H&S. Elements used in grading: Class participation, attendance, assignments and final paper. Writing (W) credit is for students entering prior to Autumn 2012. Cross-listed with History (HISTORY 307A).
Instructors for this course (Past and Present)Amalia D. Kessler
Robert W. Gordon