Course Section | Columbia Law School

Section Description Provided by Instructor

This colloquium is cross-listed in the department of East Asian Languages and Literatures. Students from outside the law school should register for this colloquium through History-East Asia as HSEA 8888 Graduate Colloquium in Chinese Legal History.



This colloquium will introduce students to current scholarship on Chinese law, society, and governance. We will examine both Chinese legal history and China?s contemporary legal evolution, with particular attention to themes that link historical and contemporary developments. Topics to be examined will include the criminal justice system, the legal profession, the role of constitutional law, the roles of courts and other legal institutions, the development of corporate law, and the influence of rights consciousness and of social protest.

The colloquium will meet fourteen times. In seven of these sessions we will be joined by leading scholars from law, history, and the social sciences who will present a current scholarly paper. We spend two seminar sessions on each paper. During the first, we discuss the paper and background literature. During the second, the author joins us and discusses the paper with seminar members, faculty, and other members of the Columbia community. In preparation for the second session, students write short (three to five page) critiques of the author's paper.

Final grades will be based on the bi-weekly critiques and seminar participation. Law students wishing to write a longer research paper may opt to pursue a third credit by signing up for supervised research with Professor Liebman.

There are no prerequisites for this colloquium; we encourage participation by students from a range of backgrounds and disciplines. All readings will be in English.