Topics in American Legal History: 20th Century American Legal Thought

This experimental course surveys many historically significant "schools" of American legal thought, along the way questioning the notion of distinctive "schools," as well as the distinctive legality and the distinctive Americanness of the thought. (We will not be challenging the notion that there is thought going on.) It offers a chance to read and to argue about much of the most important and interesting writing about law produced in the past 140 years. Throughout, the emphasis will be on core controversies.