Preface
Navigating the Transsystemic:
A Course Syllabus
Shauna Van Praagh*
Naming this special issue of the McGill Law Journal was not easy. On the one
hand, editors wanted to give the issue a substantive label, to suggest the content in a
clear and informative way. On the other, they wanted to incorporate the dynamism
and diversity of the authors work in a way that no one term could capture. Caught in
a dilemma that mirrored the one their own professors faced at McGills Faculty of
Law in 1999, the student editors could have gone the sui generis route. Just as the
academic programme at the facultycharacterized as integrated, pluralist, and
polyjuralis called simply The McGill Programme, this issue of the Law Journal
might have been named simply The McGill Issue. After all, it is McGill students
who have invited these authors and indeed the very faculty in which the Journal is
housed into the reflective mode captured by this collection. It is McGill students,
interested in and motivated by the substance and form of their legal education, who
expressed real commitment to publishing an issue dedicated to what they know (and
experience) as transsystemic thinking and pedagogy.
It is true that The McGill Issue would capture locus, tradition, concept, and
practice in a celebratory and confident mode. But it would also seem limited, self-
congratulatory, and, perhaps, exclusionary. Wary of giving the name McGill some
set meaning, of infusing it with la sacralit, of foregoing engagement with messy
middle ground in favour of a fixed destination, the student editors turned to the more
generic and descriptive. In so doing, they have handed the authors the challenge of
navigating the transsystemic and beyond. They have offered space for an ongoing
conversation: a conversation with a remarkable range of contexts and directions and
problems and voices, and yet a conversation in which the participants speak with each
other and their readers. This special issue is an example of true bricolage; a project that
reflects the work of all involved and a project that calls out for further participation.
I am honoured to write a brief introduction to this gingerly (and yet
enthusiastically) named special issue of the McGill Law Journal. The student editors
have entrusted me with the task of giving a glimpse of what lies ahead, of provoking
curiosity, of providing a compass. They have asked me to offer the first word. As one
of their professors, I do so in the mode I perhaps know best: a course syllabus.
* Associate Professor, Faculty of Law and Institute of Comparative Law, McGill University.
Shauna Van Praagh 2005
To be cited as: (2005) 50 McGill L.J. 701
Mode de rfrence : (2005) 50 R.D. McGill 701
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COURSE SYLLABUS
Research Seminar: To the Transsystemic and Beyond
Spring 2006
Course Objectives
This seminar is organized around the writings of authors concerned with
relations: relations among sources and norms in mixed legal jurisdictions; relations
among law, culture, philosophical thought, and time; relations among juridical orders,
legal traditions, theological approaches, and interpretive practices; and relations
among individuals, aspirations, and social transformations. The authors we will
encounter are teachers, scholars, and advocates. More significantly, they are
explorers, travelers, and dreamers: they examine, they map, they offer critique, and
they imagine. Taken together, their writings explicitly question the content and
framework of classrooms, research projects, and reference points in law.
As a student in this seminar, you are given the opportunity to immerse yourself in
the kinds of questions, projects, spheres of curiosity, and directions reflected in the
work of these authors. You are encouraged to search for and articulate fresh links
among research, pedagogy, philosophy, argument, and practice. In doing so, you are
asked to move beyond the status of observer to that of active participant, and to
reimagine, based on these readings, what it means to be(come) a jurist. In substance
and form, this seminar interacts withand poses challenges toother courses and
seminars you have taken or will take. By the end of the semester, you will be deeply
familiar with a range of modes, registers, and sites in which law can be engaged
beyond boundaries dictated by system, location, or moment. At the same time, you
should be prepared to map your own research and practice directions within and
beyond any formal legal education.
Participants
In the spirit of the substance of this seminar, participants are drawn from a diverse
spectrum of backgrounds in terms of disciplinary tradition and language. Against this
backdrop of multiple modes of formation, participants are expected to re-examine
their connaissances in interaction with what might be labeled the sphere of the
jural. At the same time, as reflected in the authors own diversity of references and
realms, participants are encouraged to draw on their particular education and
experience to share in a project of exploring the meaning(s) and world(s) of law.
Materials
The reading list for the course consists of the eleven articles that make up this
special issue of the McGill Law Journal. You are asked to read the entire collection a
first time before focusing on particular selections relevant to the themes set out in the
course outline below. As you read, you are encouraged to create a personal lexicon of
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terms along with contexts and examples, such that a common vocabulary (albeit
marked by multiple and even conflicting definitions) will be developed within the
seminar.
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Pedagogy and Participation
Participants in the seminar should expect to learn through multiple pedagogical
approaches and formats. Sessions will be clustered according to substantive themes as
articulated in the course outline below. While exploration of one theme might begin
with an introduction by the professor to the work of the assigned authors, another
might begin with an immediate in-depth exercise of imagining related projects in
alternative contexts. Yet another theme might lend itself to a sustained focus on the
pedagogical implications of the readings: participants might be asked to lead sessions
by playing roles relevant to the exploration of teaching modes and responsibilities.
Throughout the seminar, students will be given the opportunity to interact with
the material in plural and integrated ways. They will alternatively act as leaders and
team players, performers and spokespeople, subjects and strategists, new teachers and
experienced professors, mentors and supervisors, researchers and practitioners.
Students will be expected to act as primary participants on one theme and secondary
participants on another.
In addition to active and varied participation throughout the term, substantial
formal reflection is demanded of all students. In their individual projects, students are
expected to draw on course materials in order to explore the content and form of a
concrete problem or challenge in legal thought, teaching, or practice. The final
assignment in the course will ask students to work in groups to imagine and justify a
reordering of the eleven articles included in the special issue. All work will be
commented on by peers in addition to the professor; self-evaluation and external
evaluation will be combined in a meaningful way (details to be announced).
Course Outline: Organizing Themes
The seminar will develop four overlapping themes. For each theme, participants
are invited to review the work of two or three principal authors and to make further
reference to two or three supplemental authors. Every reading in the course materials
is included once as a principal reference and once as a supplemental reference;
participants are reminded that any reading in the collection could be relevant to any
theme. Themes are accompanied by guiding questions and suggestions for discussion
inspired by the selected works.
A. Bricolage
Principal References: Le Roy, Macdonald and MacLean, Howes
Supplemental References: Arthurs, Jukier, Melissaris
For what purposes and in what ways can we imagine imbuing our conceptions,
practices, and pedagogies of law with the plural? As we transform meaningful
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exchange across juridical universes beyond mere comparison, how do we meet the
challenge of traduction without trahison? A transsystemic approach insists that
traditional borders between juridical orders or legal systems be transgressed whether
through emphasis on analogy, problem-solving, or recognition of cultural context. We
reach beyond the transsystemic when we shift our emphasis from borders (albeit
broken down) to foundational problems and processes of human collaboration,
interaction, ordering, and institution-building. In light of Howes call for cultural
reflexivity in law, compare Le Roys anthropology-informed mode of examining
concepts and models related to African property law(s), to Macdonald and MacLeans
framing of pedagogical inquiry invested in human agency and an infinite range of
legal interpretive sites and sources. Ascribing meaning to the temporal aspects of law
(Melissaris), rethinking the significance and consequences of loan and transplant of
legal concepts (Jukier), and replacing conventional jurality with fundamental
contextualization (Arthurs) are further examples of projects that emphasize the plural.
Try to trace in the readings emerging directions for describing, understanding, and
engaging in law and legality in ways that explode boundaries of jurisdiction,
authority, and discipline. How can we characterize these works as bricolage:
improvisational in nature, shaped by tools at hand, anchored in real life, responsive to
the artisans imagination, and necessarily unfinished?
B. Map-Making
Principal References: Drummond, Melissaris, Vanderlinden
Supplemental References: Berger, Janda
It may be possible to characterize all of these writings as projects in map-making.
Why and how does cartography shape the study and practice of law? When we talk
about map-making, can we replace the figurative with imagined maps in multiple
dimensionsdimensions that include space, time, belief, and dialogue? Try to identify
the features of the maps tentatively drawn by these authors, and explain why their
projects represent not only alternative but bolder maps than we might traditionally
imagine in the world of law. Note how Melissaris, Vanderlinden, and Drummond all
navigate huge territoriesnamely, time, Catholicism, and the coexistence of Israel and
Palestinebut do so through detailed exploration of concrete sites and sources.
Vanderlinden reminds us of the multiple personality of canon law and, in so doing,
illustrates the multiple perspectives (from inside out as well as from outside in) that
help us see the shape(s) of the juridical; Melissaris illustrates, through selected
examples, the normative incorporation of time into the very rhythm and constitution of
the legal; and Drummond imagines flying a kiteremoved yet anchoredto better
view the messy middle space of law in the mixed reality of the Middle East. Why are
these maps necessarily dynamic? Why is this map-making necessarily non-statist? And
how are these cartographers part of their very landscape, rather than observers devoted
to capturing fixed lines and shapes? The travels of Berger as student, advocate and
activist, and Jandas reflections on the fundamentally displacing and democratizing
work of Derrida fill out the potential for human sites (and perhaps entire maps) of law
creation. As readers of these various maps, how are we invited to live within them, to
find our place as participants on the ground?
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C. Crossing Boundaries
Principal References: Glenn, Janda, Jukier
Supplemental References: Vanderlinden, Drummond, Le Roy
From the theme of dynamic map-making flows the theme of crossing boundaries,
whether conceptual, territorial, or temporal. Indeed, we can find in these writings a
reinvigorated emphasis on thinking and teaching across, through, and beyond
classically defined systems. As Glenn turns our gaze to traditions, he illustrates their
floating nature and the implications of that nature in terms of normativity, flexibility,
and movement. In what ways are legal systems in decline, and in what contexts must
we move away from stagnant systemic thinking by going in search of normative
engagement and action? How does Jukiers transsystemic classroom discussion of
specific performance in contract law allow us to better grasp the mentalities of legal
traditions? What does it mean that this kind of teaching is more justifiable than legal
education framed by system-grounded form and substance? How is it possible to find,
as Janda does, meaningful sharing between law and philosophy reflected in efforts
aimed at communication and exchange among traditions? That is, we are invited by
these principal authors (as teachers) to cross, combine, and recultivate disciplines and
doctrines; to dwell on tradition in order to effect transformation; to find words,
sources, and frameworks that better allow us to grapple with normativity, obligation,
and relationship. Other authors respond to that invitation. Thus, how does the tool of
analogy, used by Le Roy, correspond to the search for the transsystemic in the
classroom? How might Drummond teach her own students to contribute to a map that
envisages the overlap of Rashi, land registry rules, and military intelligence as
sources of law and fragments of legal tradition? And how does Vanderlindens
intersecting examination of theological and juridical approaches help us understand
composite traditions and the relationship between the philosophical why and the
juridical what?
D. Projects and Programmes
Principal References: Arthurs, Berger
Supplemental References: Macdonald and MacLean, Glenn, Howes
This final theme invites us to connect spheres of intellectual and pedagogical
curiosity to ambitious projects for revitalizing the ways in which we live and learn
law. The principal authors listed under this theme of projects and programmes
Arthurs and Bergerare both individuals who have had great impact on law and,
indeed, on all of us. Their narratives and preoccupations translate into huge
challenges for their readers and listeners in our engagement as responsible citizens
and community members, lifelong students and dedicated advocates. In what ways do
both Arthurs and Berger encourage us to navigate in all directions through one
direction: the direction of rejecting conventional assumptions, reimagining our
institutions, and flourishing in the constant exhilaration of innovation and ideas? How
would these two jurists-teachers-practitioners respond to the particular projects taken
on by the spectrum of authors represented in this seminar? What contribution might
Arthurs make to the challenge, identified by Macdonald and MacLean, of
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encouraging new law teachers in their individual development of pluralist modes of
inquiry? Might an emphasis on tradition (Glenn) and culture (Howes) in all their
plurality respond to Arthurs concern that legal education grounded in jurality might
close itself off to important interdisciplinary possibilities? Finally, there is a recurring
sense of the contemporary and even of the future in Arthurs, Macdonald and
MacLean, Glenn, and Melissaris as these authors reflect on learning law today and
tomorrow. Is it possible to trace in Bergers reflections on his pasthis attention to
real people and real life and real institutionsthe elements that make up this
collections projects and programmes for the study and practice of law?
Suivi
The nature of this seminar is such that, in some sense, it never ends. Whether we
take this seminar as students already immersed in the transsystemic or as newcomers
to the language and approach, the material covered and the knowledge acquired
provoke further exploration. The course, then, is open-ended in much the same way
that the articles themselves are open-ended. All of the authors invite their readers,
whether implicitly or explicitly, into the discussion or practice reflected in their work.
Thus we are invited to contribute to the bricolages, to try our own hand at map-
making, to transform our learning and writing and teaching. We are invited to build
new university programmes, to be innovative advocates for justice, to develop
scholarship in ways not constrained by system or discipline. And we are invited to
articulate constructive critique, to ask tough questions, and to interrupt and even
redirect conversations. Navigating the transsystemicand setting our sights over the
horizoncontinues past the last session of this seminar and past the last page of these
assigned readings.
