The seminar is intended for students who would like to produce a publishable piece of legal academic writing. Thus, it is aimed at those working on law journal notes, law review or law-related articles, or law-related theses or dissertations. Participants will share their writing projects with one another and will discuss the strengths and weaknesses of a variety of works of legal scholarship that we will read as a group, each representing different types of scholarly intervention and modes of argumentation. We will pay particular attention to writing that seeks to innovate methodologically and that is interdisciplinary in character, drawing on historical, cultural, philosophical or economic background literatures and materials.
Students will be required to write reaction papers on some of the reading that we do as a group, present written abstracts of their own writing projects near the beginning of the seminar, a significant draft of some portion of their writing toward the end of the semester, and—by the end of the semester—a plan for completing the work. Participants will also be required to make an oral presentation of another student’s draft toward the end of the semester.
Engle, Karen