Tentative Schedule Law and Society Honours Seminars SOSC 4350, A-F 2004-05 AS/SOSC 4350A 6.0: Law and Society Seminar: Responsibility and Criminal Law Course Director: Dr. Kimberley White This section of the Law and Society Seminar is directed toward students interested in the study of criminal law, criminal justice history, and the concept of criminal responsibility. This interdisciplinary course examines different theories and philosophies about criminality that have influenced legal interpretations of responsibility in Canada. Criminal law defences such as mental disorder, provocation, self-defence and intoxication will be examined in relation to the broader cultural and political contexts in which they developed and are applied. As well, we will critically examine social and scientific assumptions about human nature and individual difference that continue to shape our social policies and legal practices. Throughout the year students will have an opportunity to engage with a range of materials including legal doctrine, case law, primary/archival documents and scholarly literature, and, in the end, will produce an example of original socio-legal research. AS/SOSC 4350B 6.0: Course Director, Gail Kellough This course is designed to integrate the Honours Program in Law and Society at the upper level. Selected themes centre around issues of governance and inequality. Specifically, we will examine the relationship between the concepts of democracy and the practices of the criminal justice system. The first half of the course explores the ways in which criminal justice practice is influenced by and influences social inequity for particular groups. We will also examine theoretical perspective concerning the changing nature of the relationship between the state and the community as this relationship affects (and has affected) the operation of the justice system. This first section of the course deals with historical and current realities of the criminal justice system. By contrast, the second half of the course examines theoretical possibilities for the future. We will explore a variety of theoretical perspectives from critical criminology that suggest alternative methods for providing social justice and community security. AS/SOSC 4350C 6.0: Transnational Crime and Policing Course Director, James Sheptycki This course will draw on the specialist literature concerning the emergence of transnational policing and transnational organized crime in order to explore how the discipline of criminology intersects with globalization. It will consider some central attributes of the legal and institutional nexus that circumscribes these phenomena and the relationships between them. Students will be invited to critically engage with a variety of theoretical perspectives on transnational crime and policing (including functionalism and conflict approaches) and with a number of substantive problem areas (for example internet based crime or crimes against the environment) in order to develop their own ideas about criminology in a global context. Tentative Schedule AS/SOSC 4350D 6.0: Sex and the Supreme Court Course Director, Patricia McDermott This course seeks to look at concepts and principles that underlie the norms of contemporary common law to bring out its moral and social dimensions. These concepts and principles will be illustrated by applying the tools of social science to selected legal cases from the Supreme Court of Canada that highlight gender relations and focus on the concept of ‘sex’. AS/SOSC 4350E 6.0: Aboriginal Law Course Director: Jane McMillan Within First Nation communities, public perceptions of the Canadian justice system are generally negative. There is a great deal of mistrust and fear that encounters with any level of the system, aboriginal peoples are greatly disadvantaged. Across Canada aboriginal people resist and reject the hegemonic legal processes of the dominant society as they vie for control and ownership of systems deemed uniquely indigenous, culturally appropriate and traditionally based. This course will examine the traditional foundations of aboriginal law, the impact of colonization on aboriginal law ways, and current socio-legal issues in aboriginal communities across Canada.