Face-to-face , second term, 30 hours of theory.

Second term
Tuesday from 16:00 to 18:00 at 109 Marais 100

English

The course will teach students to: (1) detect the legal mechanisms and institutions that are at play in societal change; (2) approach political struggles from the point of view of the technical inventiveness, legal or other, that lies therein; (3) confront different perspectives on law and society with each other.

For the Bachelor in Law :

For the Bachelor in Law (Evening Programme) :

For the Bachelor in Information and Communication :

For the Bachelor in Political Sciences: General :

For the Bachelor in Sociology and Anthropology :

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Law - the institutions as well as the legal reasoning - is one of the most potent technical matters in Modern Society, in that it allows for change without requiring the full-hearted commitment of all those involved.
Many of today's anthropologists and sociologists would agree with this and acknowledge the power relations that are necessarily involved in all law-making, but they would take a different lead from it.
This course will explore several such leads:
- Lead 1: Law-making as a means of resolving tensions and settling disputes (writings by Laura Nader, Sally Merry, ... and the cases of: corporations' neglect, alternative dispute resolution in neighborhoods)
- Lead 2: Law-making as a means of producing shared truths and national pacification (cases of transitional justice in: Re-Unified Germany, post-Franco Spain, post-colonial South-Africa, post-genocidal Rwanda)
- Lead 3: Law-making as a means of aligning interests and shaping, speculating on, the future (cases of urban planning, State administration and the workings of international financial markets
- Lead 4: Law-making as the sovereign counterpart of the microphysics of power (writings of Michel Foucault and the cases of: prisoners' revolts and the current Israel/Palestine conflict)
- Lead 5: Law-making as a leverage in and for political struggles (writings of Elinor Strom, Susan Coutin and Deborah Bird Rose on cases of: immigration, unemployment, common resources and reclaiming land).
Not all of these leads, writers and cases can be thoroughly handled in one semester. Following the rhythm of learning and discussions, some will be treated in more depth than others, and some might not be treated at all. However, the last lead definitely will. For it is then that the inquiries and cases put forth by the students themselves will be taken on by the lecturer.
Indeed, around the tenth week, each student will hand in a short paper on a legal intervention/alteration that changed the course of a particular political struggle. Those papers will be used for the lectures on lead 5; they will count for half the marks and will trigger the question for the open-book oral exam. (More instructions to follow during the introductory lecture.)
More generally, by presenting those leads, cases and writings, the course tackles the problem of Law and Society, and, perhaps more accurately, of the Technical and the Political: to what extend does the political require the technical? Wherein lies the technical inventiveness that allows for societal change? And under what conditions can it occur?
These questions are the course's leitmotiv. The angle by which they will be treated is highly empirical and case-oriented. The lecturer's academic background is sociology but in the end, the course relies on the triple presence of students of law, of social and political sciences - and perhaps, hopefully other discipline - to come to new transversal insights.

Lectures, with perhaps invited lecturers. Active use of the interface of eSaintLouis (articles, hyperlinks, extra info, ...). Students' input will be brought out, by using their papers in the last stretch of the course. There will be no syllabus but, when possible, handouts will be given during class.

50% for a short paper; 50% open-book oral exam, partly triggered by the paper and assessing the material covered in class.

Will be mentioned during the lectures and posted on eSaintLouis.

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