HIST 302L: Law and Public History

This course examines the difficulties and promises of bringing history into the courtroom and the way historians have informed public policy and jurisprudence. Students will identify and assess the major problems of the "historian as expert witness" phenomenon by exploring broad case studies such as: 1) cultural heritage issues such as the Nazi theft of artwork during World War II and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) in the United States; 2) big tobacco and public health in the United States and Canada; 3) historical memory and reconciliation in the post-dictatorship political and social contexts of Spain, Argentina, and Chile; and 4) the living legacies of Spanish and Mexican natural resource law in the United States.