The Making and Breaking the Law theme launches in Fall 2014 with the new interdisciplinary seminar course CAS 2500: Breaking the Law.
This innovative first-year seminar course involves four faculty members from Anthropology, History, Political Science, and Criminology, each teaching a seminar course section on Tuesday (30 students) and all together co-teaching a lecture on Thursday (120 students).
The 4-credit hour course also involves one hour per week of activities Beyond the Classroom—events designed to enhance classroom learning and promote theme community among all Making and Breaking the Law faculty and students. Events include public lectures, scholars and artists in residence, film series, workshops, and reading groups.
Through the course, faculty join students in raising some of society’s most probing questions:
- Is it wrong to seek revenge?
- How does democracy allow injustice to persist?
- When is it right to break the law?
- Who owns our bodies and ideas?
- Where do we draw the line between private and public?
- Can there be global justice?
“These questions—which have been at the heart of philosophical inquiry since antiquity, and are now evolving with social and technological revolutions—are as urgent as ever,” notes Dr. Kevin Uhalde, Associate Professor of History. “Through readings and media events, lectures and seminar discussions, students learn what it means to pursue answers to these questions from different disciplinary perspectives.”
In addition to Uhalde, the course is taught by Dr. Kathleen Sullivan, Associate Professor of Political Science, Dr. Bruce Hoffman, Associate Professor of Sociology-Criminology, and Dr. Haley Duschinski, Associate Professor of Anthropology.
This course provides all students, regardless of their academic major, a gateway to the wide array of courses bearing on issues of law and justice that fulfill upper-level distribution requirements in the College of Arts & Sciences.
It also prepares students for special learning opportunities associated with the theme, such as Study Abroad programs, Domestic Travel courses, and Research Externships.
CAS 2500 is open to freshmen and sophomores in any major. It can be found under the CAS prefix on the Course Offerings website.
It is a 4 credit hour course that counts for Tier II social Science credit.
This new course has been developed through the Ohio University Center for Law, Justice & Culture.
Comments