1 LJC 4500X: Race, Violence & the Law Ohio University, Spring 2017 Bentley Hall 210 Wednesdays 6:05 – 8:50 PM Instructor: Professor Kirstine Taylor Office: Bentley Annex 203 Email: taylork2@ohio.edu Office hours: Mondays 2:00 – 4:00 and by appointment Course Description & Objectives This course investigates the relationship between race, violence and law in the American context. Law is often understood to derive its legitimacy from its opposition to violence. But paradoxically, the enforcement of law is often bound to state violence, both threatened and enacted. In this course, we will consider a number of questions related to this paradox in the context of race in the United States: When and how might law create, sustain, or institutionalize violence against people of color? Alternatively, what role has law played in organized movements to suppress race-based violence? How have appeals to law supplied tools of recourse, resistance, political struggle, and freedom? What roles do gender and sexuality play in negotiating the boundaries of violence and law? Drawing from black political thought, legal theory, social science, and case law, this course considers the relationship between violence and law in three historical contexts relating to black Americans: slavery and abolition, Jim Crow and civil rights, and the rise of mass incarceration in the twentieth century. Course Objectives: 1. To develop a robust and critical knowledge of political and legal theory regarding relationships of race, violence, and law in the United States. 2. To develop an appreciation for how African American political thought informs the study of contemporary politics, problems, and issues regarding race, violence, and law. 3. To hone personal skills in spoken deliberation and analytical argumentation. 4. To produce a strongly analytical and creative research project, thus developing skills for research-length writing. 5. To practice applying critical thinking to ones’ own political lives and commitments. Required Texts Frederick Douglass, NARRATIVE OF THE LIFE OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS, AN AMERICAN SLAVE Frederick Douglass, Robert S. Levine, John Staufer, and John R. McKivigan, THE HEROIC SLAVE: CULTURAL AND CRITICAL EDITION (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015) Naomi Murakawa, THE FIRST CIVIL RIGHT: HOW LIBERALS BUILT PRISON AMERICA (Oxford University Press, 2014)