Legal Studies 391LS - S- Law & Society

What is the role of law in shaping basic and taken-for-granted social meanings? How does legalism generate social categories of analysis, attribute particular qualities to persons and property, and define relations between states and individuals? In this course, rather than approaching law as a set of constraints around which rational individuals can strategize, we focus on the symbolic dimension of legality and critically examine the relation of law to structures of power and subordination.

Open to Senior and Junior Legal Studies majors only.