This fully remote 8-credit program explores how U.S. law and psychology are deeply intertwined, and how what we consider “normal” at any point in time is shaped by the social, cultural, and political climate. Law shapes notions of belonging, constructs ideas about race, class, gender, ability, and other aspects of identity, and often operates from a binary stance: Black/white, male/female, citizen/noncitizen. The social sciences, including psychology, have played a role in defining ideas of what it means to be “normal”, and the theories that underpin these notions are similarly steeped in binary thinking.

Viewed from a variety of historical and contemporary sources, this course will explore the spaces in between binaries. This program pays particular attention to identities that trouble binary thinking most directly: mixed race identity, and trans and non-binary identity, both of which unsettle logics of discrete categories of race, sex, and gender. Together, we will ask, what might it look like to critically examine our notions of identity? What would that require of us as a society, and how would it change our relationships to one another?

Class will consist of 4 hours of synchronous meeting time each week, plus 4 hours of asynchronous work and additional assignments.

Anticipated Credit Equivalencies: 

4 - Legal Studies: Jurisprudence and Society

4 - Critical Psychology