Legal History Seminar

Catalog description

This seminar provides a substantial introduction to Anglo-American legal history, with an emphasis on three inter-related topics: (1) the development of the common law and of natural law theories as competing epistemological systems with political and constitutional consequences during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; (2) the development of property law and political rights during the nineteenth century, with special attention to American slavery and westward expansion; and (3) the rise of the public (the "public sphere," the public interest, the public trust) as legal and historical concepts with profound consequences in environmental and natural resources law during the twentieth century. Across these topics, the seminar will invite comparisons between the ways in which historians argue about the past and the ways in which legal academics, lawyers, and judges argue about common law precedent, constitutional interpretation, and statutory construction. Central to the seminar is sustained attention to the relationship between what is legal and what is legitimate. Prerequisite(s): Property, Constitutional Law I and II. Graded.