Corsi di Studio del Dipartimento di Culture, Politica e Società

- Be able to evaluate the role of Asian legal, political and cultural spaces as means of achieving social change and social justice.

- Be able to illustrate how Asian laws are embedded in social life and to identify the nexus between law and culture, identity, religion, economy, and politics.

- Be able carry out interdisciplinary analysis of Asian legal issues, with an appropriate awareness of the purposes and limits of such a methodological approach.

- Have acquired a deeper knowledge of various social science approaches to research into Asian laws, and an understanding of their usefulness in relation to more narrowly legal approaches.

The course will be articulated in two modules.

Module 1

1. Unpacking Asia as an entity: How can Asia be defined (if at all)? What do Asian values mean? 
2. Legal pluralism in Asia: How do different formal and informal legal traditions co-exist and how do they interact with each other? 
3. Law and ethnic conflict in Asia: Does the law contribute to ethnic factionalism in Asia? What political histories explain the law’s role in ethnic conflicts in Asia (discuss using case studies)?  
4. Law and religion: Does religion inform law-making in Asia and if so, how? How do courts and legislatures respond to religious discourse? At the same time, how do legislatures and courts make and unmake secularism in Asia? 
5. Civil society in Asia: Does civil society work the same way in Asia as it does in the rest of the world? How does civil society influence law-making?  
6. Constitutional rights: How have different Asian constitutions evolved in the past decade? How have constitutions responded to demands for rights of cultural and sexual minorities, rights of nature, feminist approaches to criminal codes? 

Module 2 will focus on:

• Law and society: relevant literature and the Indian context
• The Indian legal tradition, with specific attention to the Hindu one
• Colonialism in India: burden and impact on the contemporary Indian legal culture
• Contemporary Indian legal system: Constitution, personal laws and current legal challenges
• Women's rights: focus on feminist strategic litigation in India and the multicultural challenges
• The Adivasi communities in India: gendered analysis of indigenous issues and relevant case law as regards land tenure and customary inheritance laws

The course will be held in presence.

The slides of the lessons and the related materials will be uploaded on the Moodle platform, in order to allow the students to prepare themselves on the topic that will be discussed during the class. Students are therefore invited to sign up on the Moodle platform as any communication will be circulated via Moodle.

ATTENDANCE

In order to be considered as attending students, the students will have to attend 80% of classes, which means that students missing more than 3 classes overall will be automatically considered as non-attending students.

FINAL EXAM

Attending students:

The final mark for attending students will be composed as follows:

40% group presentation

60% final essay OR final oral exam

Group presentation: attending students will have to prepare a group presentation on a topic agreed with the teacher. The group will submit a short paper right before the presentation, and then will introduce the contents of the paper orally during each module’s last class.

Final essay OR final oral exam: attending students can choose between the written or oral exam.

If they opt for the written exam, they will have to submit one paper (6000 words), at least 10 days before the date of the exam on which they intend to register the mark. Attending students will have to choose a topic that touches upon the issues covered during the whole course, as the paper shoud focus on both Mod. 1 and Mod. 2. Further information on the submission will be circulated during the course.

If they choose the oral exam, they will be tested on the materials indicated for attending students during the regular exam sessions.

Non-attending students:

Oral exam only, non-attending students’ materials