HIS2915 – Fair Trial: Meeting Out Justice from Antiquity to the Present

Schedule, syllabus and examination date

Course content

The seminar will?look at a number of criminal trials, both high-profile cases and everyday proceedings, to understand how judicial proceedings have changed over a long time period while also retaining some essential structures. Through deep reading of sources from each trial as well as secondary literature, we will ask how notions of "fairness", "due process", "evidence", or the "law" have evolved and how trials reflect normative expectations that are specific to and indeed highly revelatory of their respective temporal, spatial, and social contexts.

We will ask if and in what ways modern trials differ from their predecessors, how meaningful comparisons can be made, and whether or not there is a hard, systemic core to the "law" as opposed to politics, society, and culture which we can identify and study as historians.

Case studies include the trials of Jesus, Jeanne d'Arc, and the alleged witch Tempel Anneke as well as the Stalinist show trials of the 1930s and cases from international tribunals such as those for Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone. All course readings will be in English, and no prior legal knowledge is required.

Learning outcome

When you have completed this course you will be able to:

  • understand the main lines of European legal history through two millennia
  • analyze primary sources
  • master interdisciplinary challenges

Admission to the course

Students who are admitted to study programmes at UiO must each semester register which courses and exams they wish to sign up for?in Studentweb.

If you are not already enrolled as a student at UiO, please see our information about?admission requirements and procedures.

A background of at least 30 credits in humanities or social sciences.

A good ability to read, write and understand English is required for this course.

Overlapping courses

Teaching

The course consists of twelve seminars, each lasting