Keep checking Spire, two last minute additions are coming (in fact, there is rumor of a 3rd so stay tuned):
Legal 297D, Youth Violence and Justice
Schedule # TBA, TuTh 2:30 – 3:45, taught by Liz Brown
High profile reports of youth violence have led many to question the underlying presuppositions of the juvenile justice system and prompted many lawmakers to encourage the use of punitive and adult sanctions for youthful offenders. These changes have resulted, according to some observers, in a juvenile system distinct from its original premises even prompting one scholar to describe the system as a ‘second-class criminal court.’ This course will examine the cultural and political significance of youth violence in the contemporary period and the impact on the regulation of youthful offenders through the juvenile court. This course will cover topics ranging from gang violence, school violence, and popular culture representations of youth crime to the social construction of childhood, the legal basis and regulation of the juvenile justice system, and the unique position of child soldiers in international conflicts. Throughout each of these topics, we will want to understand the concomitant development of the juvenile justice system and social concerns about youth, community, nationhood, and modernity. At the conclusion of the course, we will reflect on the future of the juvenile justice system and its place in a just society.
Legal 497G, Geography and the Law
Schedule # TBA, Wed 3:35 – 6:05 taught by Liz Brown
Geography and the Law Human social life is fundamentally spatial. This reality is produced in large part by legal distinctions that regulate social spaces and people, such as territorial boundaries, citizenship status, and zoning legislation. Yet, the law is often also used to regulate social conflicts and thus has a hand in shaping the social spaces that we all inhabit. In this way, the law is not only spatial but also helps to produce the spatial realities we encounter. This often unforeseen dimension of the law forms the basis for the exploration of the intersection between geography and the law in this course. This course will introduce students to the variety of ways in which the spatiality of law is expressed and the role of law in regulating social spaces. Specific topics covered include the regulation of public space, the policing of cities, the regulation of private property, questions of sovereignty, the regulation of terrorism, and the impact of globalization on borders and mobility. In each topic, we will pay particular attention to the way in which law and space intersect to produce social inequalities based in race, class, gender, and sexuality.