University Bulletin (2009-2010)

LGLS 10a Introduction to Law
[ ss ]
Surveys the nature, process, and institutions of law: the reasoning of lawyers and judges, the interplay of cases and policies, the impact of history and culture, and the ideals of justice and responsibility. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Gaskins

LGLS 89a Law and Society Internship and Seminar
Prerequisites: LGLS 10a and one other LGLS course or permission of the instructor. To obtain an internship, students must discuss their placements with the LGLS internship director by April 1 for fall term internships or by November 1 for spring term internships. This course may not be repeated for credit.
A biweekly class, a supervised law-related internship in a public agency or nonprofit organization, and a related research paper. Examples of internship activities include investigating discrimination cases, negotiating between consumers and small business, and attending criminal and family courts. Internships must be arranged through the program administrator. Usually offered every semester.
Ms. Stimell

LGLS 98a Independent Research
Usually offered every year.
Staff

LGLS 98b Independent Research
Usually offered every year.
Staff

All LGLS courses may be limited in enrollment, with preference given to legal studies minors.

LGLS 114a American Health Care: Law and Policy
[ ss ]
Not recommended for freshmen.
Highlights issues of access, quality, and cost. Introduces laws and regulations that affect every aspect of American health care from planning and finance to patient treatment. Traces development of Medicare and Medicaid. Discusses malpractice, "birth of the Blues," expansion of HMOs, and influence of employer-purchased insurance on cost and delivery of health care. Portrays the important roles that courts, Congress, and administrative agencies play in organization and delivery of health services. Usually offered every year.
Staff

LGLS 120a Sex Discrimination and the Law
[ ss ]
Traces the evolution of women's rights in the family, in employment, and in the reproductive process, as well as constitutional doctrines. Examines gender inequalities and assesses if and how the law should address them. Legal cases studied emphasize how law reflects society. Usually offered every third year.
Staff

LGLS 121b Law and Social Welfare: Citizen Rights and Government Responsibilities
[ oc ss ]
Should U.S. welfare policy protect those in need and should the government have the responsibility to do so? Explores the legal implications of recent debates and changes in social welfare policy at federal and state levels, concentrating on welfare reform, child welfare, and disability welfare. Examines statutes, landmark cases, historical literature, and their practical effect on the individual in order to challenge the assumptions underlying our policy and to create better solutions. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Stimell

LGLS 124b International Law and Development
[ nw ss ]
Surveys public and private forms of international law with special application to developing countries, and to political and social development in the global economy. Examines basic legal concepts of property, contract, and rule of law in the context of national and cultural transformations. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

LGLS 125b International Law and Organizations
[ ss ]
Introduction to international law, its nature, sources, and application, for example, its role in the management of international conflicts. Topics may include international agreements, international organizations including the United Nations and the International Court of Justice, states and recognition, nationality and alien rights, territorial and maritime jurisdiction, international claims, and the laws of war and human rights. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

LGLS 126b Marriage, Divorce, and Parenthood
[ ss ]
Examines recent developments in family law concerning cohabitation, open adoption, no-fault divorce, joint custody, and same-sex marriage. Explores social and political developments that bring about changes in law and impact of new law. Usually offered every third year.
Staff

LGLS 128b Comparative Law
[ ss ]
Compares constitutional practices in the United States; the reformed communist nations of Eastern Europe; and the modernizing nations in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Focuses on the creation and evolution of constitutional structures, problems of federation and ethnicity, and protection of fundamental rights. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

LGLS 129b Law, Technology, and Innovation
[ ss ]
Study of interaction of the law and technology, including how law encourages and restrains the processes of technological innovation and change, and how technological innovation and change affect the law. Topics include such issues as intellectual property rights and new information technologies, biotechnology engineering, and reproductive technologies. Shows how law balances personal, social, and economic interests. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

LGLS 130a Conflict Analysis and Intervention
[ oc ss ]
Examines alternatives to litigation, including negotiation and mediation. Through simulations and court observations, students assess their own attitudes about and skills in conflict resolution. Analyzes underlying theories in criminal justice system, divorce, adoption, and international arena. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Stimell

LGLS 131b Patient Autonomy: Law, Medicine, and Ethics
[ ss ]
Examines how decisions are made to treat critically ill patients. Ethical and philosophical aspects of the physician-patient relationship, the doctrine of informed consent, "medical futility," "physician-assisted suicide," and "right-to-die" cases will be explored. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

LGLS 132b Environmental Law and Policy
[ oc ss wi ]
Examines public health and environmental problems, including regulation of harmful substances in our environment, wilderness preservation, and protection of wetlands and endangered species. Explores use of risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis; also considers the impact of political ideologies on legislation and adjudication. Evaluates law's efforts and limitations in protecting public health and the environment. Students also engage with the local community to address current legal issues. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Goldin

LGLS 133b Criminal Law
[ ss ]
Topics may vary from year to year. Students may repeat the course for credit, with permission of the program administrator, if the focus is different each time.
For fall 2009, the course focuses on International criminal law; fall 2010, the focus will be American criminal law.
Mr. Leahy

LGLS 138b Science on Trial
[ qr ss ]
Surveys the procedures and analytic methods by which scientific data enter into litigation and regulation/policy making. Introduces basic tools of risk analysis and legal rules of evidence. Case studies of tobacco litigation and regulation; use of DNA and other forensic evidence in the criminal justice system; the Woburn ground-water contamination case; and other topics to be selected, such as genetics in the courtroom, court-ordered Cesarean sections, polygraph testing, alternative medicine, and genetically modified foods. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

LGLS 150a Law and Society in Cyberspace
[ ss ]
Examines how legal practices expand and restrain the digital revolution, how legal authority itself is challenged by the Internet, forcing new strategies of response, and how social/political forces shape legal policy on copyright, privacy, harassment, libel, and free speech. Usually offered every third year.
Staff

LGLS 161b Advocacy for Policy Change
[ ss ]
This hands-on course invites students to address concrete social problems through public policy reform. It provides background in theories, advocacy skills, networks, and key players that drive the legislative process. Focusing on policy change at the statehouse level, students engage with elected officials and community organizations to advance key legislation affecting social welfare, health, education, and economic justice. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Stimell

AMST 187a The Legal Boundaries of Public and Private Life
[ ss ]
Confrontations of public interest and personal rights across three episodes in American cultural history: post-Civil War race relations; progressive-era economic regulation; and contemporary civil liberties, especially sexual and reproductive privacy. Critical legal decisions examined in social and political context. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Gaskins

AMST 188b Justice Brandeis and Progressive Jurisprudence
[ ss ]
Brandeis's legal career serves as model and guide for exploring the ideals and anxieties of American legal culture throughout the twentieth century. Focuses on how legal values evolve in response to new technologies, corporate capitalism, and threats to personal liberty. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Gaskins

AMST 189a Legal Foundations of American Capitalism
[ ss ]
Surveys core legal institutions of property, contracts, and corporations. Examines how law promotes and restrains the development of capitalism and market society in America, from the era of mass production through the age of global trade and digital commerce. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Gaskins

JOUR 140b Investigating Justice
[ ss ]
Explores in depth how journalists cover the criminal justice system and investigate cases of potential wrongful convictions. Students observe, analyze, and write about criminal cases, gain insights into the justice system, and consider the intersection of race, class, and ethics. Usually offered every fourth year.
Staff

PHIL 13b The Idea of the Market: Economic Philosophies
[ hum ]
Historical survey of philosophical assumptions in the defense and critique of market capitalism, starting from Adam Smith's views on value, self, and community. Explores philosophical alternatives in Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Dewey, and Nozick, including debates on justice and individualism. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Gaskins

PHIL 74b Foundations of American Pragmatism
[ hum ]
Introduction to American instrumentalism as a philosophical movement and cultural force. Special attention to pragmatic imprints on law and science across the twentieth century. Recurring critical debates over ethical relativism, religious skepticism, legal activism, and the cult of scientific and professional expertise. Usually offered every fourth year.
Mr. Gaskins

POL 116b Civil Liberties in America
[ ss ]
The history and politics of civil liberties and civil rights in the United States, with emphasis on the period from World War I to the present. Emphasis on freedom of speech, religion, abortion, privacy, racial discrimination, and affirmative action. Readings from Supreme Court cases and influential works by historians and political philosophers. Usually offered every year.
Staff

AMST 102a Environment, Social Justice, and the Role of Women
[ oc ss wi ]
Yields six semester-hour credits towards rate of work and graduation.
This community-engaged course involves students first-hand in the legal, policy, science, history and social impacts of current environmental health issues challenging individuals and families and communities today, with a particular focus on low-income, immigrant communities and the profound and unique roles played by women. Students will engage directly in the topics through field trips, visiting speakers and discussions with stakeholders themselves. They also will address the issues by collaborating in projects with local organizations, and assisting low income residents in Waltham at the Tenant Advocacy Clinic.Usually offered every semester.
Ms. Goldin

AMST 160a U.S. Immigration History and Policy
[ ss ]
Examines the economic, political, and ideological factors underlying immigration policy in U.S. history, especially since 1965. Analysis of contemporary immigration, refugee and asylum issues, and problems of immigrant acculturation today. Usually offered every third year.
Staff

AMST 170a The Idea of Conspiracy in American Culture
[ ss ]
Considers the "paranoid style" in America's political and popular culture and in recent American literature. Topics include allegations of "conspiracy" in connection with the Sacco and Vanzetti, Hiss, and Rosenberg cases; antisemitism and anti-Catholicism; and Watergate and Irangate. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Cohen

AMST 191b Greening the Ivory Tower: Improving Environmental Sustainability of Brandeis and Community
[ oc ss ]
Yields six semester-hour credits towards rate of work and graduation.
In this hands-on course, students design and implement environmental sustainability initiatives to benefit the campus and the local community. Students analyze the environmental impact of human activities within the existing legal, political, and social structure; learn basic research strategies for auditing and assessing the effect of these activities; and contribute to the overall understanding of the environmental impact of the Brandeis community on its surroundings. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Goldin

ANTH 156a Power and Violence: The Anthropology of Political Systems
[ nw ss ]
Political orders are established and maintained by varying combinations of overt violence and the more subtle workings of ideas. The course examines the relationship of coercion and consensus, and forms of resistance, in historical and contemporary settings. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Ferry

ANTH 163b Production, Consumption, and Exchange
[ nw ss ]
Prerequisite: ANTH 1a or ECON 2a or permission of the instructor.
We read in newspapers and books and hear in everyday discussion about "the economy," an identifiably separate sphere of human life with its own rules and principles and its own scholarly discipline (economics). The class starts with the premise that this "commonsense" idea of the economy is only one among a number of possible perspectives on the ways people use resources to meet their basic and not-so-basic human needs. Using extensive cross-cultural case studies, looks at the satisfaction of these needs (which we might call economic activity) as they interact with other aspects of life: gender, kinship, ideas of morality and taste, spirit possession, politics, and so on. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Ferry

CHSC 6a Forensic Science: Col. Mustard, Candlestick, Billiard Room
[ qr sn ]
Prerequisites: High school chemistry and biology. Does NOT meet requirements for the major in chemistry.
Examines the use of chemical analytical instrumentation, pathology, toxicology, DNA analysis, and other forensic tools. Actual and literary cases are discussed. Error analysis, reliability, and predictability of results are considered. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Reis

ECON 57a Environmental Economics
[ ss ]
Prerequisite: ECON 2a.
Investigates the theoretical and policy problems posed by the use of renewable and nonrenewable resources. Theoretical topics include the optimal pricing of resources, the optimal use of standards and taxes to correct pollution problems under uncertainty, and the measuring of costs and benefits. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Bui

ECON 60b The Economics of International Trade Disputes
[ ss ]
Prerequisite: ECON 8b.
Analyzes economic issues involved in a set of recent international trade disputes at the frontier of disagreement and conflict in international economic relations from the perspective of directly and indirectly affected participants such as firms, workers, consumers, policymakers, and NGOs. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Bown

ECON 177b Economic Regulation and Deregulation
[ ss ]
Prerequisites: ECON 80a and ECON 83a or permission of the instructor.
Rate regulation of natural monopolies, antitrust regulation of horizontal and vertical mergers and contracts, and the deregulation movement. Focus on the peak-load pricing problem, vertical restraints, and case histories of airlines and savings and loan institutions. Usually offered every third year.
Staff

FYS 76a Law and the Search for Authority
[ ss ]
Examines how societies seek to justify their basic legal rules. Readings drawn from political, historical, and philosophical works that search for ultimate legal principles in written constitutions, totalitarian authority, custom and tradition, or the fallible capacities of human reason.
Mr. Gaskins (American Studies)

HIST 160a American Legal History I
[ ss ]
Surveys American legal development from colonial settlement to the Civil War. Major issues include law as an instrument of revolution, capitalism and contract, invention of the police, family law, slavery law, and the Civil War as a constitutional crisis. Usually offered every third year.
Mr. Willrich

HIST 160b American Legal History II
[ ss ]
Survey of American legal development from 1865 to the present. Major topics include constitutionalism and racial inequality, the legal response to industrialization, progressivism and the transformation of liberalism, the rise of the administrative state, and rights-based movements for social justice. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Willrich

HIST 161b American Political History
[ ss ]
Development of American party politics, the legal system, and government. Special attention paid to the social and cultural determinants of party politics, and economic and social policymaking. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

HS 120a Race and the Law
[ ss ]
Explores how race has been defined and used to uphold or undermine the principles espoused in the Constitution and other sources of the law in the United States. Issues discussed range from treatment of Native Americans at the nation's birth to the modern concept of affirmative action. One of our premises is that ideally the law represents the synthesis of the narratives of various elements of a society. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Hill

NEJS 25a Introduction to Talmud
[ hum ]
Prerequisite: A 30-level Hebrew course or the equivalent is recommended.
An introduction to Treatise Sanhedrin, on the subject of judicial procedure and capital punishment. Attention is paid to modes of argument, literary form, and development of the Talmudic text. No previous study of Talmud is presupposed. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Kimelman

NEJS 59b The Philosophy of Jewish Law
[ hum ]
Investigates the philosophic underpinnings of Jewish law. Issues include tradition and change, interpretive freedom, authority, and the nature of legal consciousness. Ranging from the Talmudic to modern periods, emphasizes the thought of Mendelssohn, Hirsch, Rosenzweig, Soloveitchik, Hartman, and Levinas. Usually offered every third year.
Staff

NEJS 113b Law in the Bible and the Ancient Near East
[ hum nw ss ]
Open to all students.
A study of laws and legal ideas in biblical and Near Eastern law "codes," treaties, contracts; economic documents and narratives; the development and function of the documents and ideas; the meaning of the laws; and their significance for the various societies. Usually offered every third year.
Mr. Wright

NEJS 126a Intermediate Talmud
[ hum ]
Prerequisite: A 40-level Hebrew course or the equivalent.
Tractate Sanhedrin, chapter three, which deals with the issue of voluntary and compulsory arbitration and the binding nature of gambling agreements. Usually offered every fourth year.
Mr. Kimelman

NEJS 186a Introduction to the Qur'an
[ hum nw wi ]
Traces the history of the Qur'an as text, its exegesis, and its role in inter-religious polemics, law, theology, and politics. Examines the role of the Qur'an in modern Islamic movements. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Lumbard

NEJS 196a Marriage, Divorce, and Sexual Ethics in Islamic Law
[ hum nw ]
Using law to understand Islamic gender discourses and Muslim women's lives, the class addresses broad areas where law and gender intersect jurisprudential method and classical doctrines; women's use of courts to settle disputes; and contemporary debates over legal reforms. Usually offered every fourth year.
Staff

PHIL 12b Social Justice
[ hum ]
This course may not be repeated for credit by student who have take PHIL 112b in previous years.
The course will look closely at the idea of social justice and the moral and political issues to which it gives rise. Discussion will include critical analyses of modern conceptions of what constitutes a just society as well as an examination of how these conceptions apply to contemporary issues at the intersection of politics and markets. The course will examine in light of different ways of viewing social justice, the case to be made for and against distributing certain goods and services as the result of free exchange or through markets subject to some degree of public oversight, regulation, planning and control. The course will look at what, if anything, is to be done about, among other things,financial markets, national health care, garbage disposal, funding of the arts, fire departments, auto, gas, and coal emissions, clear cutting, highway construction, zoning laws, food and drugs, patents, public parks and schools, voucher programs, toxic waste, endangered species and the licensing of parents. Discussion will also address the question whether there might be a shared conception of social justice or a balance struck balance between liberty and equality that all reasonable persons could accept. Readings include selections from Locke, Rousseau, Mill, Rawls, Nozick, Walzer, Friedman, Hirschman, MacIntyre, Sandel and others. Usually offered every third year.
Mr. Teuber

PHIL 19a Human Rights
[ hum wi ]
Examines international human rights policies and the moral and political issues to which they give rise. Includes civilians' wartime rights, the role of human rights in foreign policy, and the responsibility of individuals and states to alleviate world hunger and famine. Usually offered every third year.
Mr. Teuber

PHIL 20a Social and Political Philosophy: Democracy and Disobedience
[ hum wi ]
Focuses on the relation of the individual to the state and, in particular, on the theory and practice of nonviolent resistance, its aims, methods, achievements, and legitimacy. Examines the nature of obligation and the role of civil disobedience in a democratic society. Explores the conflict between authority and autonomy and the grounds for giving one's allegiance to any state at all. Examples include opposition to the nuclear arms race, and disobedience in China and Northern Ireland and at abortion clinics. Usually offered every third year.
Mr. Teuber

PHIL 22b Philosophy of Law
[ hum wi ]
Examines the nature of criminal responsibility, causation in the law, negligence and liability, omission and the duty to rescue, and the nature and limits of law. Also, is the law more or less like chess or poker, cooking recipes, or the Ten Commandments? Usually offered every year.
Mr. Teuber and Staff

PHIL 111a What Is Justice?
[ hum ]
Prerequisite: One course in philosophy or political theory or permission of the instructor.
What is justice and what does justice require? The course examines theories of justice, both classical and contemporary. Topics include liberty and equality, "who gets what and how much," welfare- and resource-based principles of justice, justice as a virtue, liberalism, multiculturalism, and globalization. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Smiley

PHIL 117b Topics in the Philosophy of Law
[ hum ]
Prerequisites: one course in philosophy or legal studies, or one of the following:
POL 115a, POL 116a, or permission of the instructor. Topics vary from year to year.
Course may be repeated once for credit.
Topics include such key issues as privacy, free speech, theories of punishment, alternatives to punishment such as rehabilitation and shaming, theories of judicial review, and legal and moral rights. Usually offered every third year.
Ms. Fray-Witzer

POL 110a Media, Politics, and Society
[ ss ]
A broad-based inquiry into the role of the media in contemporary American society, with special emphasis on the political impact of the media, the ethics of good reporting, the rise of new technologies, and current legal issues regarding freedom of the press. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

POL 112a National Government of the United States
[ ss ]
The roles played by Congress, the president, the bureaucracy, and the courts in policy making at the national level. Contrasting perspectives, incentives, and capabilities of each institution; formation of coalitions across institutional lines; and changes in institutions over time. Usually offered every third year.
Staff

POL 115a Constitutional Law
[ ss ]
Analysis of core principles of constitutional law as formulated by the Supreme Court. Primary focus on the First Amendment, the equal protection and due process clauses, federalism, the commerce clause, and the separation of powers. Emphasis also on the moral values and political theories that form our constitutional system. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Woll

POL 115b Seminar: Constitutional Law and Theory
[ ss ]
Advanced research seminar on selected issues of constitutional law. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Woll

POL 117a Administrative Law
[ ss ]
The role of administrative agencies in lawmaking and adjudication. Emphasis on the problem of defining and protecting the public interest, as well as the rights of individuals and groups directly involved in administrative proceedings. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Woll

POL 118b Courts, Politics, and Public Policy
[ ss ]
Prerequisite: POL 14b.
Analyzes the political role of American courts, examining the politics of judicial appointments, the role of legal mobilization and strategy, and the capacity of courts to produce social change. Focuses on political science case studies that place the actions of courts in the larger framework of American politics. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

POL 158b Comparative Perspectives on the Law and Politics of Group Rights
[ ss ]
Prerequisite: POL 11b or POL 14b.
The creation of new group rights for disadvantaged populations in democratic states through constitutional reform and affirmative action, and the legal and political dilemmas raised by efforts to implement these rights. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Klausen

POL 192b Seminar: Topics in Law and Political Theory
[ ss ]
Interplay among law, morality, and political theory. Specific topics vary from year to year. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Yack or Staff

SOC 106a Issues in Law and Society
[ ss ]
An interdisciplinary approach to the study of crime and punishment. Analyzes theories and empirical research and methodology around a number of problem areas in the criminal justice system, with special attention paid to street violence, domestic violence, the courts, the prison, the different therapeutic systems, and the dilemmas of social and legal justice. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Hayim