Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Subject to modification
Spring 2014
T/TH 11:30-1:00
Course Overview
Some have argued that we are living in an age in which the political is
increasingly displaced into the realm of the legal, social policy
dissolving into the technocratic language of efficiency. And yet the
“rule of law” has tremendous currency and moral force in international
politics, and legal language has become a key resource in struggles
over livelihood and ways of life. How are relationships between legal
and political realms structured and with what consequences? How does
law provide tools for both social struggle and for social control? What
does anthropology bring to research on these issues? In exploring
these questions, we will combine theoretical readings with
ethnographic inquiries of the state, the legal, the magical and the just.
Required/Recommended Texts
Please use your discretion and buy those books you believe will be
useful to you now and in the future, and read the others on reserve.
We will read some of the following texts in their entirety, and read
selections from the others. Please consult the course syllabus for
details. We will try to assure that all articles and text selections are
posted on the course website as PDF files.
Texts Available for Purchase
John Comaroff and Simon Roberts. Rules and Processes: The Cultural
Logic of Dispute in an African Context, University of Chicago Press
(1981).
Sarah Jain. Injury: The Politics of Produce Design and Safety Law in the
United States. Princeton University Press (2006).
Franz Kafka. The Trial. New York: Shocken Books. (1937) 1992
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Paul Bohannon. Justice and Judgment Among the Tiv. London: Oxford
University Prress, chapters 1-4.
Thursday: John Comaroff and Simon Roberts. Rules and Processes: The
Cultural Logic of Dispute in an African Context, University of Chicago
Press (1981). Selections to be determined.
Tuesday: Sally Merry. “Legal Pluralism.” Law and Society Review 22(5):
869-901, 1998.
Richard Wilson. “Revenge and Reconciliation in Post-Apartheid South
Africa: Rethinking Legal Pluralism and Human Rights.” Current
Anthropology 41(1): 869-901, 1988.
Tuesday: Sarah Jain. Injury: The Politics of Produce Design and Safety
Law in the United States. Princeton University Press (2006).
Thursday: Jean Comaroff and Jean Comaroff, eds. Law and Disorder in
the Post-Colony. University of Chicago (2006). Selections to be
determined
— “The Ends of the Body: Commodity Fetishism and the Global Traffic
in Organs.” SAIS Review, Vol. 22, No. 1, 2002, pp. 61-80.
We will have one take home exam that is designed to help to think
your way through the material in preparation for selecting your final
paper topic. The exam can be, indeed should be, considered a
collective endeavor in terms of discussion; however, each student
must author their own responses. (20%) of the final grade)
We will also have one legal critique project, designed to help you
reflect on a current legal or political issue through the prism of course
materials and discussion. Your report should explain the issue,
summarize the key debates, and outline how legal anthropology would
frame the problem and a possible response. (20%) of the final grade)