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California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Soka University Japan - Transcend Art and Peace
Created: July 27, 2003
Latest Update: January 20, 2005
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

CRMJ 352: Law and Social Change

You will be held accountable for purposes of grading for the readings and exercises listed here. There will be no "testing." That means that you will not have to live in anxious anticipation of what we will ask and how much you will have to know. Instead, we will provide weekly discussion questions, lectures, essays, and concepts we feel that you should know as a result of having taken this course. You will assure us of that learning and receive your grade for the questions and concepts about which you choose to write and talk with us. In addition you will find detailed explanations and examples on our grading policies in the first week's reading.

* * * * *

Week 2: Week of January 23, 2005

Newsflash: Optional Dear Habermas Workshop - Monday, January 24th, 12 noon to 1 p.m. in the microcomputing classroom (D1 level in the library).

Topic: Teaching/Learning and Why Habermas? Who's Habermas?

Preparatory Readings:

• Curran and Takata. Sociology of Law Handbook , Chapter 1.
• Mann and Zatz. Images of Color, Images of Crime -- foreword, Chapter 1.
• Arrigo. Social Justice/Criminal Justice -- Introduction.
• "Who's Habermas? Why Habermas?"
  
  
• "My Role in Social Change" Poem by LaTricia White (Spring 2004)
  
• "They Ain't Us: Identity as an Anti-Norm"
  
• W.I. Thomas "Definition of the Situation
  
  
• Links to the Sociology of Law Handbook readings
  -- Introduction
  -- Chapter 1, part 1
  -- Chapter 1, part 2
  -- Chapter 2



Lecture related links:


--- Martha Minow. Making All the Difference: Exclusion, Inclusion and American Law. Check out this link Martha Minow on the Dear Habermas site.




Concepts to be covered:

• the aesthetics of answerability
• Jurgen Habermas
• fact
• norm
• tension between facts and norms
• the external and internal motivations of learning
• dog letters



Discussion Question Sets:

1. Link to The Aesthetics of Answerability . If you have already completed this discussion set in a previous course, check out the alternate assignment.
   

2. Link to Teaching/Learning. If you have already completed this set of discussion questions, answer the "experiential activities questions" instead.



Suggested Creative Measures:



• Start thinking about ideas for your creative measures. Must relate to "law and social change." Must be pre-approved. Cannot be something that you are doing for another course. Research cannot be 100% online (i.e., google, askjeeves). Must conduct library research using scholarly works, (not the popular press -- Time Magazine, Newsweek, Sports Illustrated).



Recommended Readings:



• Spencer Johnson. Who Moved My Cheese?"
• Carl Honore. In Praise of Slowness: How a Worldwide Movement is Challenging the Cult of Speed.
• James Gleick. Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything.
• John Naisbitt. Megatrends.
• Alvin Toffler. Future Shock.
• Spencer Johnson. The Present.
• John Naisbitt. High Tech, High Touch: Technology and Our Accelerated Search for Meaning.
• George Ritzer. The McDonaldization of Society.
• George Ritzer. Enchanting a Disenchanted World: Revolutionizing the Means of Consumption.
  
  
• Jurgen Habermas. Between Facts and Norms.
• Martha Minow. Making All the Difference: Inclusion, Exclusion and American Law.

takata@uwp.edu