Curriculum Guide · Courses

Professor Ruskola

J.D. Course 1013 (cross-listed) | 3 credit hours

This course is an introduction to comparative jurisprudence. That is, we will be studying the political, social, cultural, and intellectual phenomenon to which we usually refer by shorthand as "law", and we will do so by using comparison as our predominant method of study. Among other things, we will consider the basic jurisprudential differences between Anglo-American common law and continental civil law. However, going beyond this traditional comparative framework, we will expand our focus geographically, outside the West, as well as historically, to analyze a variety of jurisprudential concepts in different periods. Among other things, we will examine the jurisprudential foundations of various types of religious law and international law. I have pre-selected a number of topics for inclusion in the course. I have also some blanks in the syllabus, so that I may bring in guest speakers to discuss a legal culture in which they have particular expertise.

Although the course will cover a wide range of topics, geographic areas, and time periods, its two main underlying themes will be the analysis of methodological problems in the cross-cultural and trans-temporal study of legal concepts. Drawing on comparative jurisprudence, legal history, legal anthropology, and other areas of inquiry, the questions that we will attempt to answer include the following: What is law? Is it universally present in all societies? Who gets to decide who has law, and what are the normative implications of having, or not having it? Is law a useful analytical category in cross-cultural comparison? How is law related to other aspects of culture and socio-economic organization? How does law construct national subjects, racial subjects, and gendered subjects? How and why does law change through time? What happens when the legal institutions of different cultural groups come in contact with each other? What happens when multiple legal orders coexist within one society?

Attendance is mandatory at all class sessions.