Advanced Research Seminar 1 (398-1-20)
Instructors
Abigail Rose Barefoot
847/467-0259
Abigail Barefoot is an Assistant Professor of Instruction at the Center for Legal Studies. Prof. Barefoot’s research explores questions of justice, safety, and accountability through the lens of prison abolition and critical carceral studies Abigail’s current book project Beyond Carceral Responses: Transformative Justice, Prison Abolition, and the Movement to End Sexual Violence examines transformative justice practices for sexual violence. Using an ethnographic approach, Abigail unpacks the tensions, contradictions, and possibilities of practicing transformative justice as experienced by survivors, facilitators, and people who cause harm. Her other teaching and research interests include LGBTQ Studies, American social movements, and mass incarceration.
Meeting Info
620 Lincoln St #218: Mon, Wed 9:30AM - 10:50AM
Overview of class
Legal Studies 398-1,2 is a two-quarter sequence required for all Legal Studies majors. This seminar exposes students to a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches to law and legal institutions; over two quarters, students will develop their own research paper on a topic of interest.
Registration Requirements
Legal Studies Majors only
Learning Objectives
Once you complete the Advanced Research Seminar, you should be able to:
o Read and analyze diverse primary legal and political sources carefully and accurately, with attention to the author's perspective, position, and credibility, and to the source's general context.
o Be familiar with research methods and best practices regarding qualitative and quantitative data, written materials, and electronic databases.
o Read, evaluate, summarize, and engage with scholarly works by others, and be able to analyze authors' arguments for evidence, context, strength, and credibility.
o Understand how to work with and situate one's own work within existing scholarship and how to properly cite facts, ideas, and scholarship.
o Generate original research questions regarding the relationship of law and society and devise research strategies for answering research questions.
o Make clearly written and organized arguments that are well supported by primary sources.
o Design and execute an original research project.
Teaching Method
Seminar-style discussion
Evaluation Method
research and writing assignments, class participation
Class Materials (Required)
All material will be posted on Canvas or available through the library at no cost.
Class Notes
Attendance at first class required, no P/NP option