Adv. Topics: Justice

4.0 credits

This seminar focuses on the many ways people cross-culturally consider justice, particularly in relation to criminalization and incarceration. How are cultural ideas about crime and justice historically contingent, and related to economic, political, and cultural systems? What is the relationship between law and justice? How do different legal systems consider guilt, accountability, punishment, justice, redemption, or reconciliation? How have anthropologists studied these questions and contributed to these debates? We will look at examples both locally and globally. This is an advanced topics seminar that requires weekly participation, and a semester-long research project.