POPULAR TRIALS
SOCIOLOGY GL 3685 06
YORK UNIVERSITY, GLENDON COLLEGE
2013-2014
Course Director: Professor Richard Weisman
Office : Rm. C117 York Hall
Email: rweisman@yorku.ca
Hours- 9 am- 12 pm – Tuesdays—rm. A201
Office Hours- Tuesdays- 2-3pm or by appointment-
Website: rweisman.apps01
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
This course focuses on popular trials- or judicial proceedings that engage the interest of a general audience usually sustained by some form of mass communication. Such trials- whether or not they result in establishing new legal norms- are public events that can serve as cultural reference points for beliefs that unite or divide the community. The first part of the course introduces the conceptual tools and theoretical orientations that will later be applied to specific popular trials. We will draw upon works in cultural studies and interpretive sociology to look at trials as social enactments that make use of ritual and dramaturgy to achieve their effects. Popular trials will also be approached from the vantage point of communication studies and critical semiotics to show how these events filter experience and how they generate representations of social reality that in turn become the focus of intense public debate and discussion.
Each of the specific trials that we consider will be looked at in historical context and in relation to the legal culture of the period. Second, we will look at the meanings that contemporaries assigned to the trials and, where applicable, the meaning that these events have been given by later generations. Third, we will analyze each trial in terms of its social representation, its use of ritual and dramaturgy, its narratives, and its competing discourses. Finally, we will search for features that invite comparisons with other trials.
Part I of the course sets forth the concepts and perspectives that will guide is in the next section of the course. In Part II, we will look at the following trials: (1) The Salem witchcraft trials(1692)- Massachusetts Bay Colony; (2) The trial of John Brown(1859)- Virginia; (3) The trial of Adolf Eichmann(1961)Jerusalem; (4) The trial of Dorothy Joudrie(1996)- Calgary.
Course Materials:
* Course kit. Available for purchase at Glendon Bookstore
** Denotes electronic access from York University Library Site. It is your responsibility to access these articles either as e-copies or hard- copies. To include them in the course packet would substantially raise the cost of the kits.
*** Texts required for course that will be available for purchase at York University
Bookstore
Videos: Throughout the year, we will be viewing several videos which are an important part of the course material and will be referenced on tests, exams, and in lectures. Attend these classes as a few of these documentaries or movies are not available online or at York.
Course format: The course will consist of a two-hour lecture with a one- hour tutorial in which students will engage the materials and ideas for the course.
Course Evaluation:
1) Courtroom observation- to be given out October 29 and due on November 12, 2013- 15% Details to follow
2) In-class test(3 hours): January 7, 2014 – 20%
3) Major essay- Due on March 25, 2014- 35% Details on assignment to follow in October.
4) Tutorial Participation: – 10%
This will be based upon the quality of the student’s engagement with the weekly readings and topics. The evaluation will only be partially determined by the student’s regular attendance. Regular attendance does not guarantee a strong participation grade but poor attendance will insure a weak grade. Students should come to the class having read the required readings and having prepared at least one question or point of interest to be raised in the tutorial. Grades for participation will only be counted if they raise the grade you receive from your written work for the course.
5) In-class test(3 hours): April 1, 2014-20%
Students are responsible for : all assigned readings, whether or not such readings are specifically covered in class.
Missed Tests: Generally, missed tests will be assigned grade of zero, unless prior notification is given to the instructor AND there are legitimate medical or compassionate circumstances involved. You must have your doctor use the “Attending Physician’s Statement” form provided by the office of the registrar at http://www.registrar.yorku.ca/services/petitions/forms.htm#6
Late assignments: There is a penalty of 2% per day for assignments handed in late, unless prior arrangements with the instructor have been made. With proper documentation, medical and compassionate grounds may waive the penalty. Late assignments need to be handed in as hardcopy with your name on the cover of the essay to the Glendon drop box in rm. C213. At the same time, submit an electronic copy of your essay as I will use this as for date submission verification. Never slip your paper under my office door. Always keep a copy.
Centre for Academic Learning : http://www.arts.yorku.ca/caw/
Access/Disabilty:
York provides for students with disabilities (including physical, medical, learning, and psychiatric disabilities) needing accommodation related to teaching and evaluation methods/materials. It is the student’s responsibilty to register with disablity services as early as possible to ensure that the
appropriate academic can be provided with advanced notice. You are encouraged to schedule a time early in the term to meet with each professor to discuss your accommodation needs. Failure to make these accommodations may jeopardize your opportunity to receive academic accommodations.
http://www.yorku.ca/dshub/
http://www.yorku.ca/opd/
http://www.yorku.ca/cdc/
Academic Honesty – Policies & Explanations of Breaches & Their Consequences
York students are required to maintain high standards of academic integrity and are subject to the Senate Policy on Academic Honesty; please review the following website:
http://www.arts.yorku.ca/faculty_and_staff/policies_and_procedures_for_faculty/academic_honesty_students.php
Religious Observance Accommodation:
York University is committed to respecting the religious beliefs and practices of all members of the community, and making accommodations for observances of special significance to adherents.
Should any of these dates specified in this syllabus for an in-class test pose such a conflict for you, contact me within the first 3 weeks of class.
Course Withdrawal Date:
Last date to drop ‘Y’ courses without receiving a grade: Feb. 14, 2014
Please verify all add/drop dates on the York website:
http://www.registrar.yorku.ca/importantdates/fw09.htm
September 10- Introduction and Orientation
September 17- Popular Trials- Procedural and Substantive Justice; Legal and Substantive Rationality
Readings: News items on case of Robert Latimer*
Maricarmen Jenkins, “Moral Judgement and the Case of Robert Latimer,” Perspectives on the Latimer Trials, 64 Sask Law Review(2001) pp.545-558** (See Hein online for law journals- e-resources- York library.)
Kadri, Sadakat, “From Eden to Ordeals,” Chapter 1 in The Trial: A History from Socrates to O.J. Simpson, 2005*
Film: Inside the Jury
September 24- Popular Trials and Popular Culture- Law and the media
Readings: Robert Hariman, “Performing the Laws: Popular Trials and Social Knowlege,” pp.17-30 in Popular Trials: Rhetoric, Mass Media, and the Law(University of Alabama Press, 1990.)*
Lawrence M. Friedman, “On Stage: Some Historical Notes About Criminal Justice,” in Patricia Ewick, E. Kagan, and Austin Sarat, eds., Social Science, Social Policy, and the Law, Russell Sage Foundation, 1999, pp.68-100*
Richard Sherwin, “Law in Popular Culture,” pp.95-112 in Austin Sarat, ed., Blackwell Companion to Law and Society, 2004*
Video- We will look at selected extracts from current representations of law on TV both in the genres of TV series and reality TV shows such as Judge Judy, Judge Joe Brown, and People’s Court.
October 1- Popular Trials- the Political Trial
Readings: Ron Christensen, “What is a Political Trial?” in Political Trials, 2nd edition, Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, N.J., 1999, pp. 1-14 *
Contemporary accounts of Q.v. Riel(1885)*
Edward Knappman, editor, Great World Trials, New England Publishing Associates, 1997, pp. 232-238(Moscow purge trials); pp.266-273(Nuremberg Trials); pp.347-354(Trial of Nelson Mandela)-*
October 8- Political Trial – Film based on Trial of Sophie Scholl- Germany – – 1943
October 15- Popular Trials- Legal Discourse, Narrative, and Social Representation:
Readings: Dragan Milovanovic, “A Semiotic Perspective in the Sociology of Law,” in A Primer in the Sociology of Law-(Harrow and Heston, New York, 1988), pp.125-140.*
Austin Sarat, “Speaking of Death: Narrative of Violence in Capital Trials,” 27 Law and Society Review(1993), pp.19-58.**
Constance Backhouse, {“Sordid” But “Understandable Under the Circumstances,”: Kohnke, Croft, and Wilson, 1967} in Carnal Crimes: Sexual Assault Law in Canada, 1900-1975, The Osgoode Society, 2008, pp. 227-262.*
Robert A. Ferguson(1996) “Untold Stories of the Law,” in Peter Brooks and Paul Gewirtz, eds., Law’s Stories: Narrative and Rhetoric in the Law, Yale University, pp.84-98.
Jean S. Filetti, “From Lizzie Borden to Lorena Bobbitt: Violent Women and Gendered Justice,” Journal of American Studies, 35(2001), 3, pp.471-484.**
October 22- Popular Trials as Cultural Reference Point- Film Documentary- Scottsboro- An American Tragedy
October 29- Popular Trials as Dramaturgy-
Readings: Harold Garfinkel, “Conditions of Successful Degradation Ceremonies,” American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 61, no.5(1956,)pp. 420-424.** .
Janice Schuetz and Kathryn Holmes Snedaker, “Courtroom Drama: The Trial of the Chicago Eight,” in Communication and Litigation: Case Studies of Famous Trials, 1988, pp.217-247.*
Janet Malcolm, “The Side Bar Conference,” in Law’s Stories, p. 106-109.*
Erving Goffman, “Performances,” pp.17-76 in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Double Day, Anchor, 1959.*
First assignment on courtroom observation will be given out at this time.
November 5- Moral Performance at Trial- Showing Remorse-
Readings:
Richard Weisman, 2004- “Showing Remorse: Reflections on the Gap Between Attribution and Expression in Cases of Wrongful Conviction,” Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Vol. 46:2, pp.121-138.**
Richard Weisman, 2009, “Being and Doing: the Judicial Use of Remorse to Construct Character and Community,” Social and Legal Studies, Vol. 18(1), pp. 47-69**.
Will include videos of parole hearings as illustrations of what is at stake in this process.
November 12- Popular Trials- Narrative, Social Representation, and the Media- an illustration-
Film: The Trial of Powell, Koon, et al.(charge of police assaulting Rodney King- Court TV- 1992.
November 19- Bernardo-Homolka- media representations
Anne McGillivray(1998), “A moral vacuity in her which is difficult if not impossible to explain: law, psychiatry and the remaking of Karla Homolka,” International Journal of the Legal Profession, Vol. 5, Nos., 2/3, pp.255-288.**
Selected news items from Maclean’s on Bernardo case*
November 26- Theorizing trials- Perspectives from grand theory- Trial as Collective Ritual of Solidarity; Trial as Ideological Weapon in Support of Status Quo; Law as Disciplinary Regime
Readings:Milovanovic, “Karl Marx: Law in a Political Economy,” pp.61-85 in Primer in Sociology of Law.*
David Garland, “Punishment and Social Solidarity: The Work of Emile Durkheim,” in Punishment and Modern Society, pp.23-46, University of Chicago Press, 1990.*
Excerpt from Foucault, M. (1979). “The Body of the Condemned” in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison*
January 7, 2014- In-class test
Part II- Four Popular Trials
January 14- The Salem Witchcraft Trials- I Reading: Peter Hoffer, The Salem Witchcraft Trials- A Legal History***, chapters 1-4, University Press of Kansas, 1997
Recommended website: www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/ftrials.htm
Video- Salem Witchcraft Trials-
January 21- The Salem Witchcraft Trials- II- Witch Hunt as Metaphor
Readings: Hoffer, Chapters 5-12. Richard Weisman, “Witchcraft: Modern Political Usage,” Encyclopedia of Witchcraft- The Western Tradition, ABC-CLIO, 2005- to be put on website
Film: Innocence Lost- Part 1
January 28- The Trial of John Brown- Part I*
Reading: Edward Stone, ed., Incident at Harper’s Ferry, Prentice-Hall, 1959- pp. 1-80.
Film: John Brown’s Holy War
Recommended website: www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/ftrials/Brown.html
February 4– The Trial of John Brown- II- Comparisons with the trial of Louis Riel
Reading: Stone, pp.80-150.
Contemporary accounts of Q.v. Riel(1885)* (from fall session)
February 11- The Trial of Adolf Eichmann- Part I
Reading: Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem***, Penguin Books, 1964, Chapter 1-8
Film: Excerpts from The Trial of Adolf Eichmann- ABC-PBS, 1997
Recommended websites: www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/imt.htm;
www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/e/eichmann-adolf/transcripts/
February 25- The Trial of Adolf Eichmann- Part II –
Reading: Arendt, Chapter 13-15, Epilogue and Postscript.
Excerpts from The Trial of Adolf Eichmann- ABC- PBS, 1997
and from Judgement at Nuremberg- filmed in 1961
March 4- Truth Commissions and the Rituals of Transitional Justice
Film: Long Night’s Journey into Day
Reading: Humphrey, Michael, “From Victim to Victimhood: Truth Commissions and Trials as Rituals of Political Transition and Individual Healing,” Australian Journal of Anthropology, 2003, 14:2. 171-187.**
March 11- Truth Commissions and the Rituals of Transitional Justice II-
Comparisons with Trials-
Excerpts from SABC-TV- report on TRC hearings-
March 18: The Trial of Dorothy Joudrie-
Readings: Audrey Andrews, Be Good, Sweet Maid: The Trials of Dorothy Joudrie, Parts One and Two, Wilfred Laurier University Press, 1999***
March 25- Trial of Dorothy Joudrie- continued – and summary and review of course
Reading: Andrews, Part Three. ***
April 1- In-class test- 3 hours
