Legal History Workshop (Tani)
Faculty
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| Karen M. Tani Seaman Family University Professor ktani@law.upenn.edu |
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| Sarah Gronningsatergronning@sas.upenn.edu |
Additional Information
Skills Training
Oral Presentations
Expository Writing
Other Professional Skills:
Grading
30% Participation,
60% Paper,
10% Other (Oral presentation)
With Permission of Instructor
Class meets in person.
Course Continuity
Students are encouraged to stay home if you are ill or experience flu-like symptoms. If you miss a class for any reason, it is still your responsibility to make up the work missed.
I offer the following to students who miss class due to illness:
- I will make PowerPoint slides or other class materials routinely available on the course site to everyone in the class.
- When you are better, please make an appointment to meet with me and I will review/answer questions about what you missed.
Meeting Times/Location
R 3:30PM - 6:30PM
Tanenbaum Hall 345
Category
Seminar
Credits
3.0
In this graduate-level seminar, students will gain an introduction to important topics and themes in U.S. Legal History, as well as to various methodological approaches that historians use to study the role of law in American life. Via engagement with works-in-progress by top scholars of U.S. Legal History, students will also gain exposure to the craft of legal history. Students will leave this class with a better understanding of what high-quality legal historical scholarship looks like, how to produce it, and how to engage generously and productively in academic workshop settings.
Guest speakers will be confirmed by August 2024. Topics we plan to cover include law’s role in creating and reinforcing categories of difference (e.g., boundaries between racial groups and sexes, the line between “able” and “disabled”); the belief systems and perceived imperatives that have shaped different facets of the American legal system; the extent to which there is a coherent “legal system” (as opposed to a complex, overlapping set of legal orders); change over time in how law has ordered American life; and the many ways in which law has channeled and distributed power over time.
Perspectives on the Law Learning outcomes: Demonstrate an understanding of how the law affects, and is affected by, the individual course topic; Perform legal analysis in the context of the individual course topic; Communicate effectively on the legal and other aspects of the individual course topic; Demonstrate the ability to use other disciplines to analyze legal issues relevant to the individual course topic, including economics, philosophy, and sociology, as appropriate.