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SOCIAL SCIENCE 3992 6.0 POPULAR TRIALS
2010-2011
Course Director: Professor Richard Weisman
Rm. S720 Ross
Email: rweisman@yorku.ca
Office Hours- Wednesday 2-3 or by appointment
Teaching Team (T.A’s)
Ruba Ali - RabaAli@osgoode.yorku.ca
Beverly Quaison - m1b3vbev@yorku.ca
Kayla Ramlochand - kaylar@yorku.ca
| Sept 15 |
Introduction and Orientation
*Tutorials start this week.
Kadri, Sadakat, “From Eden to Ordeals,” Chapter 1 in The Trial: A History from Socrates to O.J. Simpson, 2005* |
| Sept 22 |
Popular Trials- Procedural and Substantive Justice; Legal and Substantive Rationality
Readings: News items on case of Robert Latimer*
Maricarmen Jenkins, “Moral Judgement and the Case of Robert Latimer,” Perspectives on the Latimer Trials, 64 Sask Law Review(2001) pp.545-558** (See Hein online for law journals- e-resources- York library.)
Film: Inside the Jury
Supplement: Latimer |
| Sept 29 |
Popular Trials- the Political Trial
Readings: Ron Christensen, “What is a Political Trial?” in Political Trials, 2nd edition, Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, N.J., 1999, pp. 1-14 *
Contemporary accounts of Q.v. Riel (1885)*
Edward Knappman, editor, Great World Trials, New England Publishing Associates, 1997, pp. 232-238(Moscow purge trials); pp.266-273 (Nuremberg Trials); pp.347-354 (Trial of Nelson Mandela)-* |
| Oct 6 |
Popular Trials as Cultural Reference Point- Film Documentary- Scottsboro- An American Tragedy
Supplement: Scottsboro |
| Oct 13 |
Fall Reading Week - no readings |
| Oct 20 |
Popular Trials- Legal Discourse, Narrative, and Social Representation:
Readings: Dragan Milovanovic, “A Semiotic Perspective in the Sociology of Law,” in A Primer in the Sociology of Law - (Harrow and Heston, New York, 1988), pp.125-140.*
Austin Sarat, “Speaking of Death: Narrative of Violence in Capital Trials,” 27 Law and Society Review(1993), pp.19-58.**
Constance Backhouse, {“Sordid” But “Understandable Under the Circumstances,”: Kohnke, Croft, and Wilson, 1967} in Carnal Crimes: Sexual Assault Law in Canada, 1900-1975, The Osgoode Society, 2008, pp. 227-262.*
Robert A. Ferguson (1996) “Untold Stories of the Law,” in Peter Brooks and Paul Gewirtz, eds., Law’s Stories: Narrative and Rhetoric in the Law, Yale University, pp.84-98.
Jean S. Filetti, “From Lizzie Borden to Lorena Bobbitt: Violent Women and Gendered Justice,” Journal of American Studies, 35(2001), 3, pp.471-484.** |
| Oct 27 |
Popular Trials as Dramaturgy-
Readings: Harold Garfinkel, “Conditions of Successful Degradation Ceremonies,” American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 61, no.5(1956,)pp. 420-424.** .
Janice Schuetz and Kathryn Holmes Snedaker, “Courtroom Drama: The Trial of the Chicago Eight,” in Communication and Litigation: Case Studies of Famous Trials, 1988, pp.217-247.*
Janet Malcolm, “The Side Bar Conference,” in Law’s Stories, p. 106-109.*
Erving Goffman, “Performances,” pp.17-76 in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Double Day, Anchor, 1959.*
First assignment on courtroom observation will be given out at this time. |
| Nov 3 |
Moral Performance at Trial- Showing Remorse-
Readings:
Richard Weisman, 2004- “Showing Remorse: Reflections on the Gap Between Attribution and Expression in Cases of Wrongful Conviction,” Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Vol. 46:2, pp.121-138.**
Richard Weisman, 2009, “Being and Doing: the Judicial Use of Remorse to Construct Character and Community,” Social and Legal Studies, Vol. 18(1), pp. 47-69**.
Will include videos of parole hearings as illustrations of what is at stake in this process. |
| Nov 10 |
Popular Trials- Narrative, Social Representation, and the Media- an illustration-
Film: The Trial of Powell, Koon, et al.(charge of police assaulting Rodney King- Court TV- 1992 |
| Nov 17 |
Bernardo-Homolka- media representations
Anne McGillivray (1998), “A moral vacuity in her which is difficult if not impossible to explain: law, psychiatry and the remaking of Karla Homolka,” International Journal of the Legal Profession, Vol. 5, Nos., 2/3, pp.255-288.**
Selected news items from Maclean’s on Bernardo case* |
| Nov 24 |
Popular Trials and Popular Culture- Law and the media
Readings: Robert Hariman, “Performing the Laws: Popular Trials and Social Knowlege,” pp.17-30 in Popular Trials: Rhetoric, Mass Media, and the Law(University of Alabama Press, 1990.)*
Lawrence M. Friedman, “On Stage: Some Historical Notes About Criminal Justice,” in Patricia Ewick, E. Kagan, and Austin Sarat, eds., Social Science, Social Policy, and the Law, Russell Sage Foundation, 1999, pp.68-100*
Richard Sherwin, “Law in Popular Culture,” pp.95-112 in Austin Sarat, ed., Blackwell Companion to Law and Society, 2004*
Video- We will look at selected extracts from current representations of law on TV both in the genres of TV series and reality TV shows such as Judge Judy, Judge Joe Brown, and People’s Court. |
| Dec 1 |
Theorizing trials- Perspectives from grand theory- Trial as Collective Ritual of Solidarity; Trial as Ideological Weapon in Support of Status Quo; Law as Disciplinary Regime
Readings: Milovanovic, “Karl Marx: Law in a Political Economy,” pp.61-85 in Primer in Sociology of Law.*
David Garland, “Punishment and Social Solidarity: The Work of Emile Durkheim,” in Punishment and Modern Society, pp.23-46, University of Chicago Press, 1990.*
Excerpt from Foucault, M. (1979). “The Body of the Condemned” in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison* |
| Dec 8 |
In-class test |
| Part II- Four Popular Trials |
| Jan 5 |
The Salem Witchcraft Trials- I Reading: Peter Hoffer, The Salem Witchcraft Trials- A Legal History***, chapters 1-4, University Press of Kansas, 1997
Recommended website: www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/ftrials.htm
Video - Salem Witchcraft Trials- |
| Jan 12 |
The Salem Witchcraft Trials- II- Witch Hunt as Metaphor
Readings: Hoffer, Chapters 5-12. Richard Weisman, “Witchcraft: Modern Political Usage,” Encyclopedia of Witchcraft- The Western Tradition, ABC-CLIO, 2005- to be put on website
Film: Innocence Lost- Part 1 |
| Jan 19 |
The Trial of John Brown- Part I*
Reading: Edward Stone, ed., Incident at Harper’s Ferry, Prentice-Hall, 1959- pp. 1-80.
Film: John Brown’s Holy War
Recommended website: www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/ftrials/Brown.html |
| Jan 26 |
The Trial of John Brown- II- Comparisons with the trial of Louis Riel
Reading: Stone, pp.80-150.
Contemporary accounts of Q.v. Riel(1885)* (from fall session) |
| Feb 2 |
The Trial of Adolf Eichmann- Part I
Reading: Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem***, Penguin Books, 1964, Chapter 1-8
Film: Excerpts from The Trial of Adolf Eichmann- ABC-PBS, 1997
Recommended websites: www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/imt.htm;
www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/e/eichmann-adolf/transcripts/ |
| Feb 9 |
The Trial of Adolf Eichmann- Part II –
Reading: Arendt, Chapter 13-15, Epilogue and Postscript.
Excerpts from The Trial of Adolf Eichmann- ABC- PBS, 1997
and from Judgement at Nuremberg- filmed in 1961 |
| Feb 16 |
Truth Commissions and the Rituals of Transitional Justice
Film: Long Night’s Journey into Day
Reading: Humphrey, Michael, “From Victim to Victimhood: Truth Commissions and Trials as Rituals of Political Transition and Individual Healing,” Australian Journal of Anthropology, 2003, 14:2. 171-187.** |
| March 2 |
Truth Commissions and the Rituals of Transitional Justice II-
Comparisons with Trials-
Excerpts from SABC-TV- report on TRC hearings- |
| March 9 |
The Trial of Dorothy Joudrie
Readings: Audrey Andrews, Be Good, Sweet Maid: The Trials of Dorothy Joudrie, Parts One and Two, Wilfred Laurier University Press, 1999*** |
| March 16 |
Trial of Dorothy Joudrie- continued - and summary of course
Reading: Andrews, Part Three. *** |
| March 23 |
In-class test-(2hours) |
| March 30 |
Return of Essays and Tests |
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