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Topics in Legal Studies (376-0-21)

Topic

Moral Panics

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

Technological Institute L160: Mon, Wed 2:00PM - 3:20PM

Overview of class

How and why do some issues, real or imagined, get blown out of proportion? In this course, we will explore what moral panics are, how they occur, and how we respond to them via legislation and policing. We will think intersectionally, analyzing how race, class, gender, sexuality, ability shape who or what is seen as "dangerous" or ‘deviant." Along the way, we will develop a robust theoretical toolkit, combining an interdisciplinary range of perspectives from critical criminology, sociolegal scholarship, cultural studies and creative non-fiction journalism to help us recognize and critique dubious claims. Assignments will include a midterm paper and final paper and presentation.

Learning Objectives

- Analyze how social and political forces intersect with gender, race, class, and sexuality to shape anxieties that fuel moral panics

- Define and apply key analytical concepts as they relate to gender, sexuality, race and social status.
- Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of social science theories related to the study of Moral Panics with particular attention to sociolegal theoretical approaches.
- Develop the ability to critique theories, claims, and policies in the social and behavioral sciences through careful evaluation of an argument's major assertions, assumptions, evidential basis, and explanatory utility.
- Reflect upon the way in which theories and research from the social and behavioral sciences help elucidate the factors that led to the development and sustaining of specific moral panics as well as potential solutions.
- Craft text-based and verbal analyses of assigned course media—and extend this analysis to individually-selected case studies and contexts.

Teaching Method

Discussion and Lecture

Evaluation Method

Midterm Paper, Final Paper and Presentation

Class Materials (Required)

No Textbook, all class materials will be uploaded to Canvas