Law & Society SOCIOLOGY and LEGAL STUDIES 206 Winter 2013 Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9:30 10:50 am Fisk Hall 217 Professor Laura Beth Nielsen Sociology Department, 1810 Chicago Avenue Office Hours: Thursdays, 2:00 3:30 p.m. Email: l-nielsen@northwestern.edu Graduate Teaching Assistants: Carlo Felizardo: Felizardo@u.northwestern.edu Yu-Han Jao: yuhanjao2011@u.northwestern.edu Alex Gourse: AlexanderGourse2008@u.northwestern.edu Course Description: Law is everywhere. Law permits, prohibits, enables, legitimates, protects, and prosecutes citizens. Law shapes our day to day lives in countless ways. This course examines the connections and relationships of law and society using an interdisciplinary social science approach. As one of the founders of the Law and Society movement observed, law is too important to leave to lawyers. Accordingly, this course will borrow from several theoretical, disciplinary, and interdisciplinary perspectives (such as sociology, anthropology, political science, critical studies, psychology) in order to explore the sociology of law and law s role primarily in the American context (but with some attention to international law and global human rights efforts). The thematic topics to be discussed include law and social control; law s role in social change; as well as law s capacity to reach into complex social relations and intervene in existing normative institutions, organizational structures, and the like. In this course you will: Develop critical reading, thinking, and writing skills; learn about the structure of the American legal system; employ an interdisciplinary approach to sociolegal studies; compare and contrast social science theories of law; and develop insight into the relationships between law and society This is an interdisciplinary course: you are expected to draw on skills and experiences when reflecting on the material being discussed. Read the newspaper and bring questions and issues into the course discussions. Readings ALL READINGS ARE REQUIRED: A national newspaper every day during the quarter. This includes the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, or the Washington Post. Law & Society, Winter 2013, Professor Nielsen, Page 1 of 6
Our course reader available at Quartet Copy. Readings in the Course Reader are identified with [CR] in the list of assignments. Kaaryn S. Gustafson, Cheating Welfare: Public Assistance and the Criminalization of Poverty (NYU Press, 2012) Grades: First Midterm 25% (in class on Jan 29) Assignment #1 25% (due Feb. 21 no class that day, evening lecture) Discussion Section 10% (for attendance AND participation) Second Midterm 40% (in class March 5) Exams To be fair to all students, I will not give make-up exams without a documented illness. If you know now that you cannot make the midterms, then you should not take this course. Assignments Once during the quarter, you will submit a 3-5 page written assignment on a topic of my choosing. These will be submitted on paper (STAPLED together), printed on one side of the paper using Times New Roman 12 point font, double-spaced with 1 inch margins on all sides. READ this (seriously read it). http://blogs.nd.edu/erin-mcdonnell/insiders-guide-tocollege-writing/. AND, please email a copy to sociology206@gmail.com. It should be titled LASTNAME.doc Discussion Sections There are six discussion sections during the quarter. You attendance and participation are mandatory and constitute 10% of your grade. Why? Because part of the study of law is argumentation and rhetoric. Law is as oral as it is written. This is your chance to ask questions, play around with the arguments, and learn from each other. Other Stuff Please be present when you are here. This means come on time, do not multi-task, turn cell phones off or to vibrate, stay until the end, refrain from reading the newspaper, checking e-mail, texting your buddies, playing scrabble, etc. (but if you think you can beat me at Scrabble outside class time bring it on!). To make everyone in the class comfortable to try out new ideas, all participation will be professional and polite even (or especially) when we are discussing sensitive topics. Feel free to give your notes to a student who missed a class. But do not sell, give away, or otherwise make public the notes taken in my class on any of the various websites that Law & Society, Winter 2013, Professor Nielsen, Page 2 of 6
facilitate this (or any other way that this is done). My lectures are my intellectual property and are not for sale unless I sell them. Email Etiquette. First, do you really need to email me? When I am NOT teaching, I get more email than I can effectively manage. So, my email is screened by my assistant, Katy Harris. This means I am never instantly accessible via email. Second, your first source of information is the syllabus, the Blackboard site, a fellow student, your TA, and then me (in that order). You only need to email me about missing class if you have an extended illness or are travelling for sports (Go Cats!). If you are sick then drink lots of fluids and rest. But don t email me. I also cannot answer long questions about substance to individual students via email. Ask the question in class! That way everyone benefits. Finally, if you are going to email me, make it clear what you are asking of me. Propose a solution to your problem or issue. (e.g. Can I have an extra day because my printer broke? BTW, the answer to the printer question is no. Thumb drive. Library). Any student with a verified disability requiring special accommodation should speak to me and to the Office of Services for Students with Disabilities (847-467-5330) as early as possible in the quarter, preferably within the first two weeks of the course. All discussions will remain confidential. Class and Reading Schedule Unit I: Introduction to Law and Society (or, what are we doing here?) NO DISCUSSION SECTIONS THIS WEEK TU 1/8/13 Introduction to Law and Society TH 1/10/13 Lon L. Fuller, The Case of the Speluncean Explorers, 62 Harvard Law Review (1949) [CR] Kitty Calavita, Introduction from Invitation to Law & Society: An Introduction to the Study of Real Law, University of Chicago Press, 2010, pages 1-9 [CR] Unit II: Theoretical Foundations of Law and Society SUGGESTED READING Kitty Calavita, Types of Society, Types of Law from Invitation to Law & Society: An Introduction to the Study of Real Law, University of Chicago Press, 2010, pages 10-29 [CR] Law & Society, Winter 2013, Professor Nielsen, Page 3 of 6
TU 1/15/13 Cultural Models TH 1/17/13 Structural Models Durkheim, Crime and Punishment, in The Division of Labor in Society taken from Lukes and Scull, Durkheim and the Law (1983) pages 59-68 Bohannon, Paul (1973), The Differing Realms of Law, in Black & Meleski (eds.) The Social Organization of Law. New York: Seminar Press, pp. 306-316 [CR]. David E. Rosenbaum, Legal License: Race, Sex, and Forbidden Unions, NY Times, December 14, 2003 [CR]. John R. Sutton, Law and the State: Max Weber s Sociology of Law, pages 99 114 of Law/Society: Origins, Interaction, and Change [CR] Wendy Espeland and Mitchell Stevens, Commensuration as a Social Process, 24 Annual Review of Sociology 313-343 (1998) [CR] TU 1/22/13 Conflict Models Cain and Hunt, The State, Law, and Crime from Marx and Engels on Law (1979) pages 153-159. [CR] William Chambliss, A Sociological Analysis of the Law of Vagrancy, 12 Social Problems pp. 67-77 (1964). Gabel, Peter & Jay Feinman (1998), Contract Law as Ideology, pp. 497-510 in D. Kairys (ed.) The Politics of Law: A Progressive Critique. New York: Pantheon [CR]. Unit III: The Impact of Law on Society Why Do People Obey the Law? TH 1/24/13 In class Midterm #1 Review and then begin, Why do people obey the law? Law & Society, Winter 2013, Professor Nielsen, Page 4 of 6
Theory 1: Sanction or Deterrence William C. Bailey and Ruth D. Peterson, Murder, Capital Punishment, and Deterrence, from Hugo Bedeau, The Death Penalty in America: Current Controversies, (1997) pp 135 161. Lawrence Friedman, The Deterrence Curve, excerpted in Law in Action: A Socio-Legal Reader (Foundation 2007). [CR] NO DISCUSSION SECTIONS THIS WEEK TU 1/29/13 In-Class Midterm #1 covers Units I and II. TH 1/31/13 Theory 2: Conscience/Morality Tittle and Rowe, Moral Appeal, Sanction, Threat, and Deviance: An Experimental Test, 20 Social Problems 488 498 (1973) [CR]. Amy Harmon & John Schwartz, Despite Suits, Music File Sharers Shrug Off Guilt and Keep Sharing, New York Times, September 19, 2003 [CR]. TU 2/5/13 Theory 3: Legitimacy and Respect for Authority Tom R. Tyler, and E. Allan Lind Procedural Justice in Law I and II, and Implications from The Social Psychology of Procedural Justice (1988) pages 61 83; 93 112; and 217 220 [CR] Adam Cohen, Four Decades after Milgram, We re Still Willing to Inflict Pain, New York Times Dec. 29, 2008. Unit IV: The Legal System as a Social System Structure, Rules and Roles TH 2/7/13 Legal Mobilization: Disputes as Social Constructs Felstiner, William, Richard Abel, and Austin Sarat (1981), The Emergence and Transformation of Disputes: Naming, Blaming, and Claiming..., Law and Society Review 15: 631-654 [CR]. Bumiller, Kristin (1988), The Civil Rights Society, chapter 7 pages 109 117 [CR]. Law & Society, Winter 2013, Professor Nielsen, Page 5 of 6
TU 2/12/13 Power and Courts TH 2/14/13 Ordinary People Marc Galanter, Why the Haves Come Out Ahead: Speculations on the Limits of Legal Change, 9 Law & Society Review 95 124 and 149 151 [CR]. McCann, Haltom, and Bloom, Java Jive: Genealogy of a Juridical Icon excerpted in Law in Action: A Socio-Legal Reader (Foundation 2007). [CR] Laura Beth Nielsen, Situating Legal Consciousness: Experiences and Attitudes of Ordinary Citizens about Law and Street Harassment, 34 Law & Society Review 1055 1089 (2000) [CR] Anna Kirkland, Think of the Hippopotamus: Rights Consciousness in the Fat Acceptance Movement 42 Law & Society Review 397 431 (2008) [CR] TU 2/19/13 Portions of Lawrence v Texas, Bowers v Hardwick, and the McCann-Nielsen debate from the John Marshall Law Review [CR]. TH 2/21/13 Written Assignment #1 is due. TODAY is the Legal Studies Program s Law in Motion lecture at 4-5:15 pm Location TBA (reception to follow). No class in the morning, but this lecture is required unless you have checked in with us before. Please also read: Cheating Welfare, chapters 1 and 2 Unit V: Putting It Together A Sociolegal Study of Welfare and Crime LAST WEEK OF DISCUSSION SECTIONS TU 2/26/13 Cheating Welfare, chapters 3, 4, and 5 TH 2/28/13 Cheating Welfare, 6, 7, and 9 NO DISCUSSION SECTIONS THIS WEEK TU 3/5/13 MIDTERM #2 In Class Law & Society, Winter 2013, Professor Nielsen, Page 6 of 6