Syllabus

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Course Meeting Times

Lectures: 1 session / week, 3 hours / session

Course Description

This course surveys the relationship between race and crime in the United States, with a special emphasis on the role this relationship has played in the development of American ideas about citizenship and nationhood. After a general introduction to American criminal law and punishment and a survey of approaches to the race-crime nexus, the course considers a number of case studies that have figured centrally in contemporary debates over criminal law and racial discrimination: capital punishment, felon disenfranchisement, racial disparities in the war on drugs, and illegal immigration. The third and final part of the course treats of the distinctive problems that national security concerns pose for racial equality and American citizenship, particularly in the wake of September 11, 2001.

Required Texts

Bogira, Steve. Courtroom 302: A Year Behind the Scenes in an American Criminal Courthouse. Reprint ed. New York, NY: Vintage, 2006. ISBN: 9780679752066.

Cole, David. Enemy Aliens: Double Standards and Constitutional Freedoms in the War on Terrorism. New York, NY: New Press, 2005. ISBN: 9781565849389.

Grades and Assignments

Grades will be determined as follows:

 

For the term paper (15-20 pages), students are free either to devise their own topics in consultation with the instructor, or to compare two of the case studies from Part Two of the course. Further guidelines are available in assignments. Each student is also asked to make one ten-minute oral presentation during the course of the semester; the presentations should summarize and critique the readings for a particular class. We will draw up a schedule of presentations at the first course meeting.

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