INTRO. TO HISTORY, LAW & SOCIETY (LW2030)

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What role does law play in shaping society? How have courts shaped society, both domestically and internationally? What strategies have people taken to resist unjust laws? Students engage in weekly moot courts that survey gripping historical and contemporary cases, including fugitive slave laws, the death penalty and criminal justice, hate speech, transgender rights, and issues relating to immigration, including asylum and deportation. Readings come from history, literature, sociology, and legal opinions. By the end of this course, students will be able to apply critical approaches to the law to contemporary issues; perform a mock trial, from start to finish; and write persuasive and analytically rigorous papers that demonstrate interdisciplinary thinking.

Code: 
LW2030
Name: 
INTRO. TO HISTORY, LAW & SOCIETY
Discipline: 
LW (Law)
Type: 
Regular
Level: 
Undergraduate
Credits: 
4
Can be taken twice for credit?: 
No
Pre-requisites: 
None
Co-requisites: 
None
Equivalencies: 
INTRO. TO HISTORY, LAW & SOCIETY (HI2030)

Learning Outcomes

  1. Demonstrate fluency in legal reasoning, extracting key facts and applying the law to those facts
  2. Understand connections between law and history, grounding and framing the theory of cases with historical detail and context
  3. Develop an interdisciplinary understanding of law and its social impact, explaining clear stakes of cases and their social impact
  4. Integrate law into the liberal arts curriculum, in particular demonstrating an ability to tell a persuasive and coherent story using a combination of oral presentation and writing skills

Offering(s)

Term Code Name
Fall 2024 LW2030A INTRO. TO HISTORY, LAW & SOCIETY
Fall 2024 LW2030B INTRO. TO HISTORY, LAW & SOCIETY

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