Violence, Resistance, and the Law, Stanford University

This reading group will examine the force of law, the ways in which law both depends upon and abjures violence, the ways it suppresses and invites resistance, and the identity of subjects against whom legal violence is deployed. A central object of focus will be excessive force, the legal doctrines that insulate government officers from accountability, and the ways this specific form of violence is tied to racial subordination. We will also attend to the role of force in non-violent resistance movements, the role of vulnerability in resistance movements (both revolutionary and reform-oriented), and problems of revictimization in rights assertion. Readings will be drawn from a wide range of interdisciplinary sources including law, history, political theory, critical race theory, fiction, and psychology. This discussion seminar will meet four times during the Fall quarter. Meeting dates and times to be arranged by instructor. Elements used in grading: Attendance and class participation. Stanford also offers a JD/PhD Law Program in Modern Thought and Literature. For more information, see here: https://law.stanford.edu/education/degrees/joint-degrees-within-stanford-university/law-program-modern-thought-literature/. This information has been collected for the Post-Discipline Online Syllabus Database. The database explores the use of literature by schools of professional education in North America. It forms part of a larger project titled Post-Discipline: Literature, Professionalism, and the Crisis of the Humanities, led by Dr Merve Emre with the assistance of Dr Hayley G. Toth. You can find more information about the project at https://postdiscipline.english.ox.ac.uk/. Data was collected and accurate in 2021/22.