Conceptualizing Justice

WEEK 1

Tuesday, August 26

MEET: Gather in Hance Auditorium for a plenary session for a (re)introduction to the class

Thursday, August 28 AM

READ: Robert Cover, “The Supreme Court, 1982 Term–Foreword: Nomos and Narrative”
MEET: Hance Auditorium
PLENARY: Approaching a text, navigating reading

Thursday, August 28 PM

MEET: Section Classrooms (Section Leaders & Locations will be distributed via Slack/Email)
SECTION: Making Meaning of “Nomos and Narrative”

WEEK 2

Dr. Jankovic has provided a guide for your readings for this week, which can be found here. (In order to access, be sure to be logged in to google via your Davidson account.)

Tuesday, September 2

READ: Jeremy Bentham, The Principles of Morals and Legislation, chs 1 and 4
PLENARY: Consequentialist Moral Theories

Thursday, September 4 AM

READ: Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” and Singer, “Famine, Affluence, and Morality”
SECTION: Some implications of consequentialism

Thursday, September 4 PM

READ: O’Neill, A simplified account of Kantian ethics
optional: Kant, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (selections)
PLENARY: Categorical Moral Theories

WEEK 3

Tuesday, September 9

READ: Dante, Inferno, Cantos 1-11
PLENARY: Easing into Hell (with some heretics thrown in)

Thursday, September 11 AM

READ: Dante, Inferno, Cantos 12-18
SECTION: How many different ways can humans be violent?

Thursday, September 11 PM

PLENARY: Violence, cont’d.

Friday, September 12, 5pm

DUE: Select and annotate a Text; Make a meeting with section leader to discuss annotations

WEEK 4

Tuesday, September 16

READ: Dante, Inferno, Canto 19-30
SECTION: Frauds and Haters All the Way Down

Thursday, September 18 AM

READ: Dante, Inferno, Canto 31-34
SECTION/PLENARY: Helly, Hell, Hell: Get Me Out of Here! (Begin in Section; Will move to Plenary together)

Justice as Social Contract

Thursday, September 18 PM

READ: Locke, Second Treatise of Government, chs 2, 5 and 8
PLENARY: Justice & Social Contract

WEEK 5

Tuesday, September 23

READ: Rawls, A Theory of Justice (selections)
PLENARY: Justice & Social Contract continued

Thursday, September 25 AM

READ: Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (selections)
PLENARY: Criticisms of Rawls

Thursday, September 25 PM

READ: Mills, “‘Ideal Theory‘ as Ideology”
SECTION: Reconsidering a Theory of Justice

Friday, September 26, 5pm

SUBMIT: Paragraphs about your selected annotations

WEEK 6

Tuesday, September 30

READ: Brennan, “The Constitution of the United States: Contemporary Ratification”
PLENARY: Supreme Court’s Social Contract?

Thursday, October 2

FALL BREAK: No class

WEEK 7

Tuesday, October 7

READ, Kerr, “How to Read a Legal Opinion “
PLENARY: Supreme Court Authorities: Rulings & Shadow Docket

Thursday, October 9 AM

READ: “Prigg v. Pennsylvania“
SECTION: People and Property, People as Property

Thursday, October 9 PM

READ: Review Trouillot excerpts from SA reader
PLENARY: Historians’ Roundtable

Narratives of Justice?

WEEK 8

Tuesday, October 14

READ: M. NourbeSe Philiip, Zong!
- Read selections: pgs 3-28 (poems 1-16), pgs 41-45 (poems 24-26); and sections titled: Ventus (pp. 77-98), Ebora (pp. 175-182), Glossary (pp. 183-184), Manifest (pp. 185-186), Notanda page 189 only, Gregson v. Gilbert (pp. 210-211)
SECTION: Poetic Reflections

Thursday, October 16 AM

READ: Achebe, “Ochichi Gi Agafego Oke…”
OPTIONAL READING: Robin D. G. Kelley, “What did Cedric Robison mean by Racial Capitalism?”
PLENARY: Citizen and Subject

Thursday, October 16 PM

READ: Achebe, “Performing Masculinities…”
SECTION: Gender, race, and justice in colonial Nigeria: the story of Ahebi Ugbabe

WEEK 9

Tuesday, October 21

READ: Sylvia Tamale, “Introduction,” Decolonization and Afrofeminism
PLENARY: Coloniality

Thursday, October 23 AM

WATCH: Judgement at Nuremberg (1961)
PLENARY: Law’s Limits: Seeking Justice after WWII

Thursday, October 23 PM

SECTION: Law’s Limits: Seeking Justice after WWII continued

WEEK 10

Monday, October 27, 5PM

SUBMIT: Draft of Paper 2

Tuesday, October 28

READ: Mamdani, Neither Settler nor Native: The Making and Unmaking of Permanent Minorities (selection) and Michael R. Marrus, “The Nuremberg Trial: Fifty Years After”
SECTION: Law’s Limits: Seekiing Justice after WWII continued

Thursday, October 30 AM

READ: Woodman, “The Imperial Boomerang: How colonial methods of repression migrate back to the metropolis”
PLENARY: The Imperial Boomerang

Thursday, October 30 PM

READ: Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism (selections)
SECTION: Wrestling with the Boomerang

WEEK 11

Tuesday, November 4

READ: Dorfman, Death and the Maiden
PLENARY: Truth and Reconciliation?

Thursday, November 6 AM

WATCH: Long Night’s Journey into Day
SECTION: What does truth mean? What does reconciliation look like?

Thursday, November 6 PM

READ: Tutu, “No Future without Forgiveness;” Chigumadzi, “With What are You Apologizing” (blog post), and “Can White South Africa Live Up to…”
SECTION: Complicating reconciliation

Memorializing Justice/Justice as Memorial

WEEK 12

Monday, November 10, 5PM

SUBMIT: Revised Paper 2

Tuesday, November 11

READ: Marita Sturken, “Cultural Memory in the Wake of Violence: Exceptionalism, Vulnerability, and the Grievable Life” (2018)
PLENARY: Commemoration and Cultural Memory

Thursday, November 13 AM

Thursday, November 13 PM

READ: Ying Zhu, “Moving Bodies, Moving Architecture”
SECTION: Moving and memorializing

WEEK 13

Tuesday, November 18

READ: Nereson, “Introduction,” Democracy Moving
PLENARY: Discussion with Epes Lecturer, Ariel Nereson
EPES LECTURE: 7pm, Tyler-Tallman Hall

Thursday, November 20 AM

READ: Diana Taylor, “Introduction,” Archive & the Repertoire
PLENARY: Remembering Bodies

Thursday, November 20 PM

PLENARY: Portfolio Expectations & Support

WEEK 14

Tuesday, November 25/Thursday November 27

Thanksgiving Break–No Class

WEEK 15

Tuesday, December 2

PLENARY: Arts & Archiving with Lia Newman (curator) and Cara Evanson (librarian)

**NOTE: LOCATION CHAGE. MEET AT THE LECTURE HALL IN THE VISUAL ARTS CENTER (across Main St. from Cunningham)**

Thursday, December 4 AM

READ: TBD
PLENARY: Guest lecture/workshop with Tamara Williams, “Moving Memorials: The Ring Shout”

Thursday, December 4 PM

PLENARY: Dancing Representations: Contemporary Stagings of a Black Experience/Kyle Abraham’s “PAVEMENT”