William P. Alford
Fall 2024 – Spring 2025; Fall 2023 – Spring 2024; Fall 2022 – Spring 2023
1 credit
Students interested in this writing group are encouraged to inform Professor Alford of their interest at their earliest convenience (ideally, in advance of the October deadline) so as to facilitate planning. …
William P. Alford, Mark Wu
Fall 2022
2 credits
The re-emergence of Asia is posing conceptual and practical challenges to understandings of and frameworks for global order that were ascendant throughout the latter half of the 20th century. This workshop will examine the content of those challenges and what that suggests about the prospects for global order in the 21st century. Within Asia, the workshop is likely to focus principally on East and South Asia. …
William P. Alford
Fall 2023; Fall 2022; Fall 2021
1 credit
This one unit course will examine the role that China has been playing in a world order in flux. We will consider, inter alia, China’s engagement of existing global norms, ways in which China may (or may not) now or in the foreseeable future be shaping such norms, and their impact on China. In the course of so doing, we will also address the manner of US engagement with such norms. …
William P. Alford
Spring 2025; Spring 2024; Spring 2023; Spring 2022
4 credits
This course uses the example of China as a springboard for asking fundamental questions about the nature of law, and the ways in which it may (or may not) differ in different societies. Historically, China is said to have developed one of the world’s great civilizations while according law a far less prominent role than in virtually any other. This course will test that assertion by commencing with an examination of classic Chinese thinking about the role of law in a well-ordered society and a consideration of the nature of legal institutions, formal and informal, in pre-20th century China-all in a richly comparative setting. It will then examine the history of Sino-Western interaction through law, intriguing and important both in itself and for the broader inquiry into which it opens concerning the transmission of ideas of law cross culturally. …
William P. Alford, Idriss Fofana
Past Instructors: William P. Alford, Intisar Rabb, Idriss Fofana (Fall 2023)
Fall 2024; Fall 2023
2 Credits
This workshop will engage key questions in comparative law, using as focal points the study of African and Chinese and other Asian legal systems (including Islamic law), and legal history. Students will read examples of influential scholarship in each field both for their importance and as a vehicle for thinking about methodological issues in comparative work in general. Students will also have the opportunity to engage several leading scholars in each field, as well as scholars earlier in their career, who will present works-in-progress. Students considering taking the Workshop should attend the first class even if not formally enrolled. …
William P. Alford, Steven Wang
Fall 2024
2 credits
This seminar will focus on the myriad of legal and related policy questions that are central to the U.S.-P.R.C. relationship. Earlier iterations of this class have addressed issues regarding trade, human rights, technology transfer, corporate governance, climate change, corruption, foreign direct and portfolio investment, disability, Taiwan, competing visions of law and development (as played out in Africa), and the role of lawyers. We anticipate covering a similar set of topics next fall, and may also delve into AI, sanctions, and law of the sea, among other topics. …
