Legal Studies 297S - ST- The Critical Study of Law

The purpose of this course is to introduce the students to the basic concepts for the critical study of Law, both in US and in the international context. For the purpose of this course, Law is understood as a social relationship and as a hegemonic mode of social regulation that cannot be exclusively reduced to its positive and state-centered dimension as commonly predominates in Western thought. Its genealogy is rooted on both formal and informal sources. In this course, the students will identify the several constitutive foundations of the legal-form as a historical product and to evaluate its systemic complexity, as well as its current crisis.