The first legal promulgations and lawcodes from ancient Mesopotamia and the Hittites to Exodus and Deuteronomy, Archaic Greece, and Egypt, and the origins of jurisprudence. What classes are regulated by what institutions? These are the traditions behind Western concepts of law, ultimately arising from ancient theologies.

Additional Requirements for Graduate Students:
Graduate and law students will present, as though for a conference, a coherent set of provisions (e.g., sexual torts in the Middle Assyrian Laws) with an analysis of theories of compensation or punishment, in close reading. They will write a final paper addressing such a bloc, or principle, through lawcodes, case records, and narratives through canon law or into Greek and/or Roman traditions.