Spring 2024 • Seminar
Legal History Workshop: Crime and Punishment
Admission: Although initial admission to the workshop was by permission only, any additional spots that remain or become available during shopping period will be administered through the typical waitlist process without permission required..
Exam Type: No Exam
This workshop aims to provide students with a historical perspective on the development of criminal law and policy in the United States. Assignments and discussions will feature a mix of major published works, introducing students to critical methodologies and historiographical debates, and workshop presentations by leading historians writing on the American criminal system, including scholars studying prisons, policing, criminal juries, and doctrines of liability and defense. Featured presenters, in alphabetical order, will be Rabia Belt (Stanford Law School), Thomas Frampton (UVA Law School), David Garland (NYU Law School), Elizabeth Hinton (Yale History and Yaw Law School), Randall Kennedy (Harvard Law School), Sarah Seo (Columbia Law School), and Spencer Weinreich (Harvard Society of Fellows).
Law students will have the choice of adding a writing credit to this two-credit workshop by completing a substantial paper. Those who choose to write a substantial paper will receive three credits (two classroom, one writing) upon successful completion of the course; those who do not complete substantial papers will receive two classroom credits.
All FAS students who enroll in the workshop must complete a substantial paper and will receive four credits upon successful completion of the course.