For the first class, please read the following short essay, available outside my office, Room 627:
Anthony Appiah, "But Would That Still Be Me?" Notes on Gender, "Race," Ethnicity, and Sources of "Identity," 87 J. of Philosophy 493 (1990)
In this Seminar we will investigate the various ways in which individual and group conceptions of identity are defined, enforced, managed, and adjudicated through the intervention of law. Legal authorities are often called upon to determine which aspects of human life and identity are natural and which are cultural. Courts have also, with varying degrees of discomfort, assigned people to various ethnic, racial, national, or sexual groups, and in so doing have had to develop rules of recognition that determine the authenticity of identity claims. Oft times, identity is asserted instrumentally in order to advance liberal rights-based access to social goods or resources. In each of these settings, law and identity bear a complex relationship to one another. Readings will consist of court opinions, law review articles, and writings from cultural and ethnic studies, political theory and anthropology.
Students can choose one of two ways to satisfy the writing requirements for the seminar. Students who elect not to receive Law School major writing credit for the seminar must write four 2-3 page (double-spaced) papers reflecting on the readings for that week. Each week, a sub-group of the class will be expected to write, and class discussion will evolve out of the issues raised in the student papers. These papers will be graded pass/fail. Each student must also write a final paper of no longer than 15 pages on a topic generated by the student and approved by Professor Franke.
Students who would like to satisfy their Law School major writing requirement in this seminar can elect to write a 25-page paper on a topic of their choosing, subject to Professor Franke's approval.
Paper topics must be selected by the student and approved by the Professor no later than February 7th. Final papers will be due no later than April 28th. Students seeking to satisfy the major writing requirement must submit a good draft of their papers to Professor Franke on April 14th.
Class attendance and participation are mandatory, as participation in class will account for 25% of the final grade.
Professor Franke's Coordinates:
Office: Room 627
Phone: 854-0061
E-Mail: kfranke@law.columbia.edu
Home Page: www.law.columbia.edu/faculty_franke
Office Hours: Tuesdays 2-3:30pm. If you cannot make my office hours, I will also meet with students at other times by appointment. Please call my Assistant Jinah Paek to make such an appointment. Her office number is 4-2511, and e-mail is jpaek1@law.columbia.edu.
Readings will be distributed throughout the semester from Professor Franke's Assistant, Jinah Paek.
1. Monday January 13th
Introduction - For the first class, please read the following short essay:
Anthony Appiah, "But Would That Still Be Me?" Notes on Gender, "Race," Ethnicity, and Sources of "Identity," 87 J. of Philosophy 493 (1990)
Monday January 20th - No Class - Martin Luther King Day
2. Monday January 27th
Montoya v. U.S., 180 U.S. 261 (1901)
Sunseri v. Cassagne, 185 So. 1 (1938)
Walker v. Sect'y of Treasury, 713 F.Supp. 403 (N.D.Ga.. 1989)
Chae Chan Ping v. U.S.
Takao Ozawa v. U.S.
U.S. v. Bhagat Singh Thind
3. Monday February 3rd
Corbett v. Corbett, 1971 P. 83 (1970)
In Re Estate of Gardner, 42 P.3d 120 (Kan S.Ct. 2002)
Judith Butler, Doing Justice to Someone: Sex Reassignments and Allegories of Transsexuality, 7 GLQ 621 (2001)
American Academy of Pediatrics Policy Statement, Evaluation of the Newborn With Developmental Anomalies of the External Genitalia, 106 Pediatrics 138 (July 2000) http://www.aap.org/policy/re9958.html
4. Monday February 10th
Michel Omi & Howard Winant, Racial Formation, in Race Critical Theories: Text and Context (P. Essed and D. Goldberg eds. 2002)
David Roediger, Whiteness and Ethnicity in the History of "White Ethnic" in the United States, in Race Critical Theories: Text and Context (P. Essed and D. Goldberg eds. 2002)
St. Francis College v. Al-Khazraji, 481 U.S. 604 (1987)
Shaare Tefila Congregation v. Cobb, 481 U.S. 615 (1987)
5. Monday February 17th
Toni Morrison, Recitatif, in Confirmation: An Anthology of African American Women (Amiri Baraka & Amina Baraka eds 1983)
Patricia H. Collins, Defining Black Feminist, in Race Critical Theories: Text and Context (P. Essed and D. Goldberg eds. 2002)
Ann Stoler, Racial Histories and Their Regime of Truth, in Race Critical Theories: Text and Context (P. Essed and D. Goldberg eds. 2002)
6. Monday February 24th
Ian Haney López, White by Law. The Legal Construction of Race (1996) excerpts
Sally Engle Merry, Colonizing Hawai'i: The Cultural Power of Law (2000) excerpts
7. Monday March 3rd
Wendy Brown, States of Injury (1995) excerpts
Carol Smart, The Problem of Rights, in Feminism and the Power of Law (1989)
8. Monday March 10th
Richard Ford, Beyond "Difference": A Reluctant Critique of Legal Identity Politics, in Left Legalism/Left Critique (Wendy Brown & Janet Halley eds. 2002)
Lauren Berlant, The Subject of True Feeling: Pain, Privacy and Politics, in Left Legalism/Left Critique (Wendy Brown & Janet Halley eds. 2002)
Katherine Franke, Subjects of Freedom
March 17th - No Class - Spring Break
9. Monday March 24th
Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez, 436 U.S. 49 (1978)
Miller v. Albright, 118 S.Ct. 1428 (1998)
Denise G. Réaume, Common-Law Constructions of Group Autonomy: A Case Study, in Ethnicity and Group Rights (Shapiro & Kymlicka eds)
Donald L. Horowitz, Self-Determination: Politics, Philosophy, and Law, in Ethnicity and Group Rights (Shapiro & Kymlicka eds)
Deborah Kaspin, Tribes, Regions, and Nationalism in Democratic Malawi, in Ethnicity and Group Rights (Shapiro & Kymlicka eds)
10. Monday March 31st
25 C.F.R. §§ 83.2 & 83.7
Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Proposed Finding Against Federal Acknowledgment of the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation, Wednesday, December 11, 2002
Jim Adams, Court Bans Chief for Life from Rivals' Reservation Homes, Indian Country, October 27, 2001
Naomi Mezey, The Distribution of Wealth, Sovereignty, and Culture Through Indian Gaming, 48 Stan. L. Rev. 711 (1996)
Optional Reading:
In re Federal Acknowledgment Petition of the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation Petitioner Group, Comments of the State of Connecticut, the Connecticut Light & Power Company, Kent School Corporation, and Town of Kent Regarding The Petition for Federal Tribal Acknowledgment Of the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation Petitioner Group, April 16, 2001: http://www.cslib.org/attygenl/press/2002/indian/schagbrief.pdf
11. Monday April 7th
Susan Moller Okin, Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women? (1999) p. 7-27.
Uma Narayan, Essence of Culture and a Sense of History: A Feminist Critique of Cultural Essentialism, in Decentering the Center: Philosophy for a Multicultural, Postcolonial, and Feminist World (Narayan and Harding eds., 2000) p. 80-100.
Leti Volpp, Feminism versus Multiculturalism, 101 Col. L. Rev.1181 (2001)
12. Monday April 14th - Workshopping Papers
13. Monday April 21st - Workshopping Papers
14. Monday April 28th - Workshopping Papers
