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The University of Texas at Austin School of Law
  2. Course Schedule

SMNR: Colloquium in Constitutional & Legal Theory

  • Semester: Spring 2012
  • Course ID: 397S
  • Credit Hours: 3
  • Unique: 29875

Course Information

  • Course Type: Seminar

Registration Information

  • Upperclass-only elective

Meeting Times

Day Time Location
THU 3:30 - 5:20 pm JON 5.257

Evaluation Method

Type Date Time Location
Paper

Description

This course presents an unusual structure for student course work at the Texas Law School. The basic idea is this: In the course of the semester, six leading scholars will present papers that will be the focus of the course. Students will spend two weeks considering each paper. In the first week - the "Seminar" week - students will meet with Professor Berman and Dean Sager in a traditional seminar format to discuss the paper and its background. In the second week - the "Colloquium" week - the scholar who wrote the paper will be present, and the students will be joined by members of the Law School faculty and faculty members from other departments at UT as well. Students will thus have the opportunity to engage in their own critical discussion on Seminar weeks and to observe and participate in a conversation among members of the faculty on Colloquium weeks. The substantive themes of the course are broad. Much of the focus will be on the Constitution and constitutional theory, but one or two of the papers are likely to take up broader questions in the philosophy of law and/or political theory. Students will be expected to write short, critical papers responding to each of the six papers that will be presented in the course, and to expand one of these short papers into a longer essay. For Spring 2012, Professors Berman and Sager will be joined by Visiting Professor John Ferejohn as a third instructor. Professor Ferejohn, who holds permanent appointments at both Stanford and NYU, is one of the most important and influential political scientists of his generation.

Instructors

Headshot of Berman, Mitchell N. Berman, Mitchell N.
Headshot of Sager, Lawrence Sager, Lawrence
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