Winter 2012 LEGAL_ST 376-0 Topics in Legal Studies- Law, Gender, and Sexuality

"Law, Gender, and Sexuality" - Topics in Legal Studies

This course is cross-listed with gender studies. In this course, we will study the legal regulation of gender and sexuality. We will begin with the legal and political history of women's rights and lesbian and gay rights. We will then consider contemporary legal regulation of gender and sexuality in several arenas, including criminal regulation of sex; pornography, sex toys, and prostitution; families; the military; hate crimes; and health care and HIV/AIDS. We will conclude with developing issues in LGBT law: schools, immigration, and transgender rights. While we will focus on contemporary U.S. law, we will also consider comparisons from other periods of U.S. history and from other countries.
Our approach to the law will be useful beyond just the context of law, gender, and sexuality. We will learn to think about the law as a cultural object. That is, instead of examining the law as a source of rules, we will examine the law as a site of cultural meaning-making. We will ask how and when culture influences and constrains the law, and vice-versa, how and when the law influences and constrains culture. We will consider how the law and legal structures help frame our everyday understandings of gender and sexuality.

Classes will be mostly discussion-based, including debates and small-group exercises. I will also include short lectures, video clips, and guest speakers. Readings include court opinions and other sources of law, newspaper and other media sources, and scholarly analysis from law, sociology of law and sexualities, critical race theory, gender studies, and queer studies.

Final paper, take home midterm exam, two short response papers, and class participation.

Current as of 05/03/13 05:42:47 PM