Law and Culture (378-0-1)

Instructors

Katherine Elizabeth Hoffman
847/491-4565
1810 Hinman Ave., Room #206, EV Campus

Meeting Info

University Hall 312: Tues, Thurs 11:00AM - 12:20PM

Overview of class

This seminar examines the anthropology of law as the intersection of law, culture, and language. Through theoretical and ethnographic texts and films, the course considers legal institutions, beliefs, and practices as important sites for the creation, negotiation, and reformulation of social and cultural norms and practices. We consider the ways in which culture and language shape law, and the ways in which law conditions and constrains culture and language. Our attention remains on individual actors interacting with legal systems and principles and people's expectations of the law. We examine in cross-cultural perspective such matters as evidence, persuasion, performance, human rights discourses, legal pluralism, globalization, and gender. Throughout, questions of power, agency, and inequality (especially around gender and race/ethnicity) animate our investigations.

Class Materials (Required)

"Conley, John M., and William M. O'Barr (2005; 2nd edition) Just Words: Law, Language, and Power. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
ISBN: 9780226484365

Hirsch, Susan (1998) Pronouncing and Persevering: Gender and the Discourses of Disputing in an African Islamic Court. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
ISBN: 9780226344645

Merry, Sally Engle (2006) Human Rights and Gender Violence: Translating International Law into Local Justice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
ISBN: 9780226520742"

Class Attributes

Social & Behavioral Sciences Distro Area