Connecting Art and Law for Liberation

This course will explore ways in which legal strategy and social justice movement building interact with diverse artistic media. We will examine how art can bolster legal advocacy, as well as how art is criminalized rather than regarded as a generative space for work rooted in culture, innovation and imagination. Drawing from a rich history of collaboration between lawyers and artists, students will investigate how art and the law have effectively converged, and apply this history, its methods, techniques, and lessons to contemporary issues at the heart of the criminal legal system and mass incarceration. With an expanding abolitionist tradition of art and scholarship at the center, students will engage theory and practice to develop their own praxis for working towards a more just society