Seminar: Law, Politics, and the Family
Professor Ann Laquer Estin
Fall 2004

General Information

This is an advanced seminar in family law, which explores legal and political dimensions of issues in family law and the state regulation of family life over the past century. During the first part of the semester, we will read and discuss Supreme Court cases and other materials on a series of topics including family and individual privacy, the right to marry, procreative rights, and parents' and children's rights. The last several weeks of the seminar will be devoted to discussion of student seminar papers. An outline of assignments is included below. In addition to the photocopied seminar materials, available in the bookstore, you will have assignments in Nancy Cott, Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation (2000).

We will meet on Tuesday afternoons from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m., with a short break after the first hour. My office is in Room 416. I will be available there from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. on Monday afternoons, and many other times during the week. You are welcome to stop by, or to make an appointment for a specific time. My office phone is 335-6850 and my e-mail address is ann-estin@uiowa.edu. Course information and resources are also available on my web page: www.uiowa.edu/~c091268/.

In order to receive credit for the seminar, each student must complete a substantial research paper. To get a better idea of what this task involves, I recommend that you look at published, student-written notes or comments in law reviews. Your paper must reflect substantial original thought and research; at a minimum, for one writing unit, it must be 20 pages, not including footnotes. Text should be double spaced with normal margins, and footnotes should be single-spaced.

You will need to submit the following assignments to me: a topic selection report, an outline, a first draft, and a revised final paper. Each of these is explained more fully below. During the final weeks of the seminar, I expect you to read the papers scheduled for discussion and to prepare brief written comments on each paper. Your written comments should be turned in at the beginning of the class when the paper is scheduled for discussion.

There is no exam in this course. Your grade for the seminar will be based primarily on the grade for your final paper. I will lower grades for inadequate outlines or drafts, and for missed deadlines. Approximately twenty percent of your grade will be based on the quality of your participation in our discussion and your comments on your classmates' papers. This portion of your grade will be affected by frequent absences or lack of preparation for class.