| Unit name | Law through Culture |
|---|---|
| Unit code | LAWD10020 |
| Credit points | 20 |
| Level of study | C/4 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24) |
| Unit director | Dr. Martire |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Units you must take before you take this one (pre-requisite units) |
none |
| Units you must take alongside this one (co-requisite units) |
none |
| Units you may not take alongside this one |
none |
| School/department | University of Bristol Law School |
| Faculty | Faculty of Social Sciences and Law |
Why is this unit important?
If culture can be widely defined as ‘a particular way of life, which expresses certain meanings and values not only in art and learning but also in institutions and ordinary behavior’ (R. Williams), it is clear that law and culture are inextricably intertwined. This unit addresses in an interdisciplinary fashion precisely this nexus, studying law as a socio-historically situated phenomenon both structuring and being structured by the culture of the community it belongs to. By focusing on how law is represented in various cultural expressions (e.g. novels, theatre, movies, TV series, etc.), this unit will explore both the influence law has in shaping our fundamental social categorisations and the ways in which cultural expressions can both reproduce and challenge legal narratives and practices.
How does this unit fit into your programme of study?
Within the LLB programme, the Law as Culture unit is intended to supplement and strengthen doctrinal knowledge of the legal system by offering a more holistic approach that would embed law more socially and historically by examining how society sees itself and its legal system through its own cultural expression. In this sense, this optional first-year unit would prove invaluable for our students that want to explore law beyond its supposedly neutral professional and technical nature and understand it as a fuller, ideologically loaded, and layered cultural phenomenon that is the product of a specific culture.
An overview of content
The aim of this unit is to explore the law/culture nexus and to provide a critical exploration of several key legal issues in our contemporary society from a cultural perspective by engaging with a variety of representations (e.g. novels, movies, tv series, etc.). Our objective is to study the socio-cultural narratives that shape legal meaning and empower legal norms and, conversely, to understand how law as a normative edifice and coercive system shapes our culture. The unit will be structured in two parts. The first, consisting of the first two topics, will provide the students with a theoretical introduction to the relationship between law and culture, framing law as a socio-historically situated anthropological phenomenon, and sketching theoretically how law affects culture and vice versa. The second part, consisting of the remaining three topics, will focus more on the actual representations of various critical foci of the law/culture nexus (such as the legal profession, race, gender, justice, democracy, etc.) through various media. While the first part should remain fixed through the iterations of the unit, the second part could be more flexible, reflecting the research interests of the various staff members that will participate to the unit each year.
How will students, personally, be different as a result of the unit
By studying law as a phenomenon integral to a given culture, you will be able both to appreciate law’s deeper social roots and to challenge its universalistic claims, broadening your minds and developing in an interdisciplinary fashion your analytical tools. The unit will give you the capacity to see laws working well beyond what is written in the law books and practiced in court rooms, pushing you to scrutinise cultural expressions so as to gain a more situated and therefore insightful understanding of the legal system. The combination of this new attitude towards law, detailed knowledge of cultural theory, and application of interdisciplinary research skills will allow you to better critically and fruitfully engage with your legal environment.
Learning Outcomes
The unit will be delivered through a mixture of lectures and seminars. Lectures may include short audio, visual, or audio-visual representations and will involve some degree of interactivity. Seminars may require previous or in-class vision or listening of audio, audio-visual, or literary materials (songs, movies, tv shows episodes, novel excerpts, etc.) and will require active participation by the students. Direct engagement with cultural materials is required as it is necessarily correlated with the perceptive experiencing of law through visual, literary, aural, and performative representations. Triggers warnings will be issued and viewers’ discretion advised when the selected cultural expressions may include sensitive content.
Tasks which help you learn and prepare you for summative tasks (formative):
Formative assessment comes in many forms, such as informal questioning, seminar discussions, group exercises in lectures and seminars and asynchronous activities on the virtual learning platform. These provide an opportunity for you to assess your learning and do not contribute to the final mark for the unit. There will also be the opportunity to submit a piece of writing (1000 words) that will ask you to apply the theoretical perspectives acquired in the first part of the unit to a particular cultural expression (e.g. a novel, a movie, a TV series, a news shows, etc.) selected by the Unit Coordinator. The formative will help you become familiar with with knowledge and skills later required for the summative.
Tasks which count towards your unit mark (summative):
The summative assessment will consist of a coursework submission (3000 words) that will assess all the intended learning outcomes of the unit.
When assessment does not go to plan
When a student fails the unit and is eligible to resubmit the assessment, the unit will be reassessed on a like-for-like basis. The Board of Examiners will consider in the usual way all cases where a student has failed the summative assessment or has otherwise not completed it.
If this unit has a Resource List, you will normally find a link to it in the Blackboard area for the unit. Sometimes there will be a separate link for each weekly topic.
If you are unable to access a list through Blackboard, you can also find it via the Resource Lists homepage. Search for the list by the unit name or code (e.g. LAWD10020).
How much time the unit requires
Each credit equates to 10 hours of total student input. For example a 20 credit unit will take you 200 hours
of study to complete. Your total learning time is made up of contact time, directed learning tasks,
independent learning and assessment activity.
See the University Workload statement relating to this unit for more information.
Assessment
The assessment methods listed in this unit specification are designed to enable students to demonstrate the named learning outcomes (LOs). Where a disability prevents a student from undertaking a specific method of assessment, schools will make reasonable adjustments to support a student to demonstrate the LO by an alternative method or with additional resources.
The Board of Examiners will consider all cases where students have failed or not completed the assessments required for credit.
The Board considers each student's outcomes across all the units which contribute to each year's programme of study. For appropriate assessments, if you have self-certificated your absence, you will normally be required to complete it the next time it runs (for assessments at the end of TB1 and TB2 this is usually in the next re-assessment period).
The Board of Examiners will take into account any exceptional circumstances and operates
within the Regulations and Code of Practice for Taught Programmes.
