SPAN 379 - Law and Film

This course seeks to explore the intersection between law and film, focusing in particular on how law and film relate to and/or influence each other, and on what can we learn about law and justice from watching films. We will explore how films represent law and justice and their relationship, how these representations reflect or alter our perceptions of law and the legal process, in which way they present and/or challenge ethical and moral problems (i.e., racism, capital punishment, etc), the kind of critical judgment they invite viewers to make, and what kind of alternative images of law and justice they provide. We will discuss law in cinema (how is law portrayed in films), law as cinema (legal practices as a type of cinematic-dramatic practices), cinema as law (cinematic practices as a type of practices performing adjudicative functions), and cinema as a producer of jurisprudence (how cinema rethinks notions of law, justice, rights, ethics, punishment, etc). Conducted in English. Students meet in extra sessions with readings and discussions in the original language.

Unit(s): 1
Group Distribution Requirement(s): Distribution Group I
Prerequisite(s): Spanish credit: SPAN 321
Instructional Method: Conference
Grading Mode: Letter grading (A-F)
Cross-listing(s): LIT 339
Group Distribution Learning Outcome(s):

Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a non-English language, or works of the visual or performing arts.
Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a non-English language, or works of the visual or performing arts).