Prerequisites: Property or permission of the instructor to waive the requisite.

Exam Type: No Exam

This experimental course will engage recent calls for a rewriting of the Property canon based on external sources of history, such as the conquest of the land of Native peoples, slavery, and the rise of capitalism. The course will begin with work questioning the dominant casebook approaches to Property. We will then read selected works on property and Native peoples, slavery, and political and economic development, including defenses of private property and capitalism. The course will then revisit a selection of core property cases and doctrines implicating law’s relationship to the economy and power such as, among other things, first possession and custom, international litigation over sovereignty, foreclosure on mortgages, and regulatory takings, to critically discuss how external sources inform our understanding of the doctrine. Multiple viewpoints will be encouraged. Paper required. Enrollment limited to fifteen.