Law, Ethics, History and Religion

Law, Ethics, History and Religion

The Law, Ethics, History and Religion concentration challenges students to think critically about subjects in legal theory, history, philosophy and religious studies. It places the interdisciplinary study of human values in historical context and addresses such questions as: How have states, political and religious establishments, social movements, philosophers, and religious thinkers articulated and instituted beliefs about the good, the right, and the just? What are the roots of contemporary legal systems and practices, such as common, civil, socialist, and religious law, and how does law advance or inhibit normative claims in particular cultures and societies? What is the morality of the way power is exercised politically, economically, religiously, culturally, and militarily? How have key historical figures contributed to the evolution of human values, from the ancient world to contemporary societies? What effect do religious doctrines, moral teachings, and rituals have on contemporary views of race, gender, class, and sexual orientation? What is the relationship among religion, the state, and the use of violence? How should contemporary societies deal with crime and punishment (e.g. the death penalty, mass incarceration, surveillance, policing, etc.)? 
  • Legal and Ethical Theory
  • Social, Political, Cultural Change in History
  • Contemporary Value Systems
  • Just War
  • History of Ideology
  • Religion in Society
  • Intellectual History
  • Apply categories of study to contemporary issues
  • Develop tools for multidisciplinary analysis
  • Integrate junior year experience and research into legal, ethical, religious and social course themes
  • Law and Political Machinery: Examining Gun Control through the Regulatory Schema of New York and Australia
  • The Cryptostate: A Response to the Failure of Governance in our Contemporary Era
  • Expanding the Boundaries of Transitional Justice: Collective Memory, Reconciliation, and the Tamil Diaspora
  • Women under the Veil: How the West and Religion Strip Agency from Muslim Women with Iran and Egypt as Case Studies
  • Redefining Creativity: The Development of Copyright Law in Post-Soviet Russia and the West
  • Gunfire in a Mythic Jungle: Lettow, Loyalty, and the Legend of German East Africa 1885-1968
  • Nationalism and Historical Revisionism: History as Propaganda in Franco’s Spain and Mao’s China
  • Practicing Guanxi: Confucian Ethics and the Twenty-First Century
  • Faith and Fascism: The American Catholic Press and Franco
  • Autonomous Existence: Buddhism’s Empowerment of Tang Chinese Women

James McBride, Chair
Research: International Law and Finance; Confession and Torture, Religion and Law, Postmodern Theory and Practice

Regina Gramer
Research: World War II, Cold War, German-American Political Economy, Transnational Reform Movements

Nikolay Kukushkin
Research: Memory, evolution, homeostasis, biodiversity, protein degradation

Farzad Mahootian
Research: Origins of Modern Science, Philosophy of Chemistry, Non-equilibrium Dynamics

Albert Piacente
Research: Political Economy, Economic and Political Philosophy

Joseph J. Portanova
Research: Ancient Greek, Roman, Hellenistic History and Culture; Byzantine History and Culture

Laura Samponaro
Research: Ancient Rhetoric and Political Thought; Roman Republican History and Literature; Classical Reception

Dina M. Siddiqi
Research: Transnational Feminism; Labor and Gender; Islam and Women; Human Rights

Peter C. Valenti
Research: State Building in Central Arabia, Trade Networks, Islamist movements, Arab-Israeli Conflict, Late Ottoman History

Philip Washburn
Research: Philosophy of Mind and Psychology, Critical Thinking, 20th Century Philosophy