The study of law and emotion is a growing field of critical legal scholarship. Law and Emotion scholars seek to critically interrogate law’s purported ‘objectivity’ and ‘rationality’ which obscures how these sustain forms of power, modes of marginalisation, and diverse ways in which emotion is devalued and obscured in legal discourse. Feminist and queer legal scholars in particular emphasise the significance of emotions in every part of law. To discount emotion is to ignore its very important part in multiple aspects of law, legal theory and legal decision-making. Notably, emotion needs to be taken into account when considering issues of social justice. This module aims to introduce students to the study of Law and Emotion, and to encourage them to think critically about the relationship between emotion and law.
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Occurrence | Teaching period |
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A | Spring Term 2022-23 |
The aim of this module is to provide students with a theoretically informed insight into the the relationship between law and emotion. It critically interrogates the place of emotion in relation to legal theory, legal doctrine. legal proceedings and legal actors. Students will be encouraged to think about their own emotions in relation to law and how engaging with emotion can enable us see and understand law differently. Emotion is considered in relation to social justice in the contexts of specific areas of law, including criminal law, tort law, international law, family law, refugee law, and family law.
By the end of this module, students should be able to demonstrate the ability to:
(1) Identify the main approaches in the field of Law and Emotion, specifically (Maroney 2006):
(2) Be aware of current debates in the field of Law and Emotion.
(3) Differentiate between conceptual approaches which analyse the relationship between law and emotion.
(4) Critically reflect on the role of emotion in various legal issues/problems (including by reflecting on core modules previously studied) and how to contextualise legal issues/problems by using emotion.
(5) Evaluate the relevance of emotions in addressing legal issues/ problems.
The initial plenaries and seminars will address the main approaches to, and debates about, Law and Emotion. Subsequent seminars and plenaries will focus on a specific emotion and explore how such emotion relates to a contemporary legal issue or problem. For example, we may look at disgust in relation to sexual offences, hate with hate crime, shame with punishment, fear with asylum, suspicion with psychiatric injury, love with kinship, and hope with human rights. The module will engage with law and emotion alongside a range of current law reform debates in relation to a range of legal subdisciplines, i.e. criminal law, tort law, international law, family law, refugee law, and family law, etc.) and legal texts (statutes, policies, case law, law reform reports, etc.).
Task | % of module mark |
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Essay/coursework | 100 |
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Task | % of module mark |
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Essay/coursework | 100 |
The module contains a number of opportunities for formative feedback on the development of knowledge and skills:
Summative feedback consists in generic and individualised written feedback on coursework.