Law and Culture in Premodern China

Catalog description

This course will offer a three-part approach to the study of law in premodern China, focusing on legal theory, courts and the implementation of law, and the relationship between law and popular culture. The first part of the course will provide an overview of the philosophical basis of law, the state’s development of civil and penal law codes, and its creation of courts and judicial institutions. The second part will look more closely at the application of the law code to criminal cases in the medieval period. 31 Asian Studies Here, we will study case books and judicial judgments, precedent texts, magistrates’ manuals, forensic guidelines, and journal accounts. Topics that we will examine include: the role and function of local judges, the processes by which penal cases were judged and punishments determined, and the rights and obligations of the various parties in a legal suit. The third part of the course will examine the ways in which the judicial system both influenced and was influenced by popular culture. Our readings will include religious tracts, folktales, and popular fiction. Topics will include the ways in which the court system shaped popular notions of justice, karma, and revenge; the contribution of the legal system to increasingly complicated notions of heaven and hell; and the rise of popular “detective” fiction centered on the courtroom and judges. Courses offered in related disciplines this year are listed below. Full descriptions of the courses may be found under the appropriate disciplines. Faking Families: An Anthropology of Kinship (p. 21), Mary A. Porter Anthropology Black and White and Red All Over: Races and Racism in Imperial Britain (p. 23), Mary A. Porter Anthropology Walter Benjamin’s Archives (p. 24), Robert R. Desjarlais Anthropology Human Rights (p. 85), Mark R. Shulman History Global Circulations: Art and Pop Music of Asia (p. 122),…