Undergraduate Course: Courtroom Rhetoric and Legal Doctrine (LAWS10276)
Course Outline
| School | School of Law |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This is an honours-level course in Roman law. Using texts in translation, this course deals with Cicero and the law of the later Roman Republic. More specifically, the course will focus on two of Cicero's greatest courtroom orations. These will be used to analyse the interplay between forensic rhetoric and legal doctrine. It is not essential, though it is an advantage, to have taken the Ordinary course in Civil Law. Again, some Latin, even the ability to follow a translation, is useful though by no means a pre-condition for the course. |
| Course description |
This course aims to explain in depth some key aspects of the various methods of law-making in the later Roman Republic. More specifically, students will be guided through the arguments put forward in two of Cicero's most famous courtroom orations [Pro Tullio and Pro Caecina]. These will be contextualized by focusing on the state of the law, and the use of courtroom argumentation strategies to argue in favour of his clients. By means of a detailed study of the original texts in translation, it seeks to provide some understanding of the Roman - and, by comparison, the modern legal mind at work. Teaching will be based on primary materials and extensive secondary literature. There is no prescribed textbook, but students will be required to do some research in the library.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2024/25, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: 0 |
| Course Start |
Semester 1 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 20,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
176 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
70 %,
Coursework
30 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
This course will be assessed by means of one essay (30%) and an unseen examination (70%). |
| Feedback |
Students will receive individual essay feedback |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Further insights into the historical origins of law in Western Europe while focusing on selected topics in Roman law;
- A working knowledge of the sources and methodology of legal history
- An overview of the civilian tradition and its contemporary relevance in a mixed jurisdiction such as Scotland
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Reading List
| A full reading list will be supplied in advance of every seminar. |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
The course will encourage the students to engage with primary sources and to develop their critical skills.
The course will help students to better appreciate the limits of the law and its underlying moral values, and their change over time.
The course will encourage them to appreciate the ways in which literature articulates both the capacities and incapacities of the law as it is practiced and as it might be practiced. |
| Keywords | civil law,roman law |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Prof P Du Plessis
Tel: (0131 6)50 9701
Email: P.Duplessis@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Lauren McCrory-Irving
Tel:
Email: lmccrory@ed.ac.uk |
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