CMS150 - Winter 2001

Trials of Conscience: Litigation

Week 1, Class 2 Lecture Outline

1/11/01

Roll call
Prof info
- Margaret Imber, Pettengill 208
- x8205; mimber@bates.edu; www.bates.edu/~mimber/Trials/trials.html
- Office Hours: Wed 10am - 12pm & 1-3 and by appointment
Course Requirements
- attendance policy
- quizzes
- exams
- paper option
- reading assignments and analyses; links to on-line readings (Latin/English)
- handouts -
  - syllabus
  - course requirements
  - required books
  - You are responsible for reading the handouts and web page and knowing the information contained therein.

Goal:
- Learn how to study trials in pre-modern societies
- Learn why to study trials in pre-modern societies
Method:
- Study three famous trials from classical and medieval west
  - Socrates
  - Rabirius
  - Joan of Arc
- Consider each trial from four separate (but related) analytical points of view
  - Case analysis - how a lawyer would study the trial
  - Source analysis - how a historian would study the trial
  - Argument analysis - how a rhetorician would study a trial
  - Model analysis - how a student of a particular methodology would study the trial
- Based on what we learn from these analyses for the individual trials, and considering them from trial to trial
  - can we develop a theoretical understanding of the trial as a cultural phenomenon in western societies?
  - can we develop a heuristic for trials in western societies?