Ideology, Discourse, and Law

Ideology, Discourse, and Law

Spring Semester 1999

Syllabus

Assigned Readings:

  1. Ideology, Terry Eagleton, ed. (Longman 1994).

  2. Catharine A. MacKinnon, Toward A Feminist Theory of the State (Harvard Univ. Press 1989).
  3. Pierre Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power (Harvard Univ. Press 1994)
  4. The Foucault Reader, Paul Rabinow, ed. (Pantheon 1984)
  5. J.M. Balkin, Cultural Software: A Theory of Ideology (Yale Univ. Press 1998)
  6. Duncan Kennedy: A Critique of Adjudication (fin de siècle) (Harvard Univ. Press 1997).

There will also readings from a set of xeroxed Supplemental Materials.

 

 

Part I. Ideology and Discourse

 

 

Week I. Marx and the Classical Tradition

a. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, “Selected Texts,” in Ideology, Terry Eagleton, ed., pp. 23-30
b. Karl Mannheim, “Ideology and Utopia,” in Eagleton, pp. 50-68
c. Antonio Gramsci, “The Intellectuals,” from Selections From The Prison Notebooks, Supplemental Materials
d. Jon Elster, “Belief, Bias, and Ideology,” in Eagleton, pp. 238-255

 

Week II. The Marxist Model and Feminism

Catharine MacKinnon, Toward a Feminist Theory of the State

Week III. Bourdieu

Pierre Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power

Week IV. Althusser and Foucault

a. Louis Althusser, “Selected Texts,” in Eagleton, pp. 87-111
b. Paul Hirst, “Problems and Advances in the Theory of Ideology,” in Eagleton, pp. 112-125
c. “Truth and Power,” pp. 51-75, in The Foucault Reader, Paul Rabinow, ed.
d. Selections from Discipline and Punish, in Rabinow, pp. 170-238

Week V. Foucault

Selections from The History of Sexuality, Vols I and II, Power/Knowledge, and interviews, pp. 258-390, in The Foucault Reader, Paul Rabinow, ed.

Week VI. Cultural Software and Memetic Evolution

J.M. Balkin, Cultural Software, pp. 1-170

Week VII. Ideological Effects of Cultural Software

J.M. Balkin, Cultural Software, pp. 173-294

 

 

Part II. Law

 

 

Week VIII. Law and Society

a. Alan Hunt, On Legal Relations and Economic Relations: A Critique of G.A. Cohen, Supplemental Materials
b. Robert Gordon, Critical Legal Histories, Supplemental Materials
c. Reva Siegel, Why Equal Protection No Longer Protects, Supplemental Materials

Week IX. Critiques of Rights

a. Mark Tushnet, An Essay on Rights, Supplemental Materials
b. Patricia Williams, Alchemical Notes: Reconstructing Ideals from Deconstructed Rights, Supplemental Materials
c. Alan Hunt, Rights and Social Movements: Counterhegemonic Strategies, Supplemental Materials
d. Kimberle Williams Crenshaw, Race, Reform and Retrenchment: Transformation and Legitimation in Antidiscrimination Law, Supplemental Materials

Week X. Postmodernism

a. Stanley Fish, The Law Wishes to Have a Formal Existence, Supplemental Materials
b. Pierre Schlag, Clerks in the Maze, Supplemental Materials

Week XI. Critical Legal Studies

Duncan Kennedy, A Critique of Adjudication, pp. 1-212

 

Week XII. Critical Legal Studies

Duncan Kennedy, A Critique of Adjudication, pp. 215-376

 

Week XIII. To Be Announced