Post Modern Spring 1997

   

Postmodern Legal Thought

Prof. Balkin

Syllabus

Spring 1997

We will try to complete one topic per week.

1. Introduction

  • Balkin, What is a Postmodern Constitutionalism?

  • Mootz, Postmodern Constitutionalism as Materialsm

2. Jurisgenesis and Jurispathy

  • Cover, Nomos and Narrative

  • Cover, Violence and the Word

3. Lawtalk, Part I

  • Bobbitt, Constitutional Interpretation

4. Lawtalk, Part II

  • Balkin, A Night in the Topics

  • Balkin, The Crystalline Structure of Legal Thought

5. Against Theory

  • Fish, Fish v. Fiss

  • Fish, Change
  • Fish, Dennis Martinez and the Uses of Theory.
  • Fish, The Law wishes to have a Formal Existence.

6. Normative Legal Thought

  • Campos, Schlag, and Smith, Against the Law.

7. Deconstruction

  • Balkin, Deconstructive Practice and Legal Theory

  • Balkin, Nested Oppositions
  • Balkin, The Footnote
  • Balkin, Ideological Drift and the Struggle over Meaning
  • Balkin, Tradition, Betrayal, and the Politics of Deconstruction

8. Postmodern Ethics

  • Rorty, Human Rights, Rationality, and Sentimentality

  • Lyotard, The Other’s Rights
  • Balkin, Transcendental Deconstruction, Transcendent Justice

9. The Legal Subject

  • Balkin, Understanding Legal Understanding

10. The Critique of Mass Culture

  • Collins and Skover, The Death of Discourse.

11. Transforming Legal Analysis

  • Unger, What Should Legal Analysis Become?