The Academic Program
Minor Fields of Study: Legal
History (MA and Minor Field)
Course requirements / Examinations / Other requirements
Overview
The Department of History and the College of Law offer a program in legal
history leading to either the M.A. in legal history, a Minor Field in Legal
History (for Ph.D. students), or a joint Ph.D. degree in history and the J.D.
in law. For a more detailed description of the Legal History Program see Dr.
Dale’s web page.
Course
Requirements
The M.A. and the minor both require the same three (3) seminar cycle in legal
history. This cycle has three components:
1. Law in history seminar: This seminar is intended to expose students to the fundamental principle of modern legal history: that law and legal systems exist in a particular historical context. Seminars that fulfill this requirement may be nationally based or focused on a particular, suitably broad historical topic that traces out over time how different laws shaped and reflected society and society shaped and reflected laws.
2. Theory/methods seminar: This seminar is
intended to expose students to the different theoretical and methodological
approaches brought to bear on modern legal history. This seminar is intended
to provide the methodological foundation for the work students do in their
other legal history seminars, and for their thesis work in legal history,
but it need not be taken first in the sequence.
3. Comparative legal history: This seminar is intended to expose students
to comparative/ transnational legal study, an area that is firmly rooted in
the history of legal.
Students may take the seminars listed above in any sequence. In the unlikely circumstance that no seminar is offered in a given semester, an independent study may be substituted with the approval of the grad coordinator and legal history coordinator.
Examinations
Students taking legal history as their M.A. field of concentration or as a
departmental inside minor field must take a written examination in the field.
M.A. examination: The examination will be a 24-hour take-home examination that will be given by an examining committee composed of two professors from the legal history group (the legal- history coordinator and one other professor from the legal-history group who taught the student) and one additional faculty member who does not teach legal history. In the event that the student took legal history seminars from only one professor in the legal-history group, a second member of the legal-history group will be chosen by the grad coordinator and legal-history coordinator to serve as the second reader.
Departmental Inside Minor-field examination: The examination will be a 24-hour take-home exam that will be given by an examining committee composed of two professors from the legal- history group, one of whom will be the student’s departmental inside minor-field advisor. In the event that the student took legal history seminars from only one professor in the legal-history group, a second member of the legal-history group will be chosen by the grad coordinator and legal-history coordinator to serve as the second reader. One of the two legal-history faculty members who conducted the student’s departmental inside minor-field examination will serve as the departmental inside minor-field member on the student’s dissertation committee.
Other Requirements for the MA
Students may take between three and five seminars in legal history, so long
as they take seminars in the three core areas and do not repeat courses. Students
are also expected to take the historiography seminar, six credits in history
outside the legal-history field, and three credits outside of the Department
of History. Students may choose either a thesis or non-thesis option.
The law school requires that students in the joint-degree program complete the first year of law school within one year and they must do so within the first two years of admission to the joint degree program. The law school requires students admitted to the joint degree program to complete all required law school courses. If a scheduling conflict occurs between a required history seminar and a required law school course, a student should work with the legal-history coordinator to try to resolve the scheduling conflict.
The credit hour expectations for a student in either the M.A./J.D. or Ph.D./J.D. programs in history are set out at http://www.law.ufl.edu/programs/joint/degrees.shtml [link].
It is the expectation of the law school and the History Department that students admitted to the joint-degree program will take a mix of law and history courses in all semesters other than their first two semesters at the law school. Failure to do so may have an impact on funding for students in the Ph.D. program.
Students who have questions about specific requirements should contact the legal-history coordinator.
Consistent with the interdisciplinary expectations outlined in the Graduate Catalog, students will no longer be admitted to either the M.A./J.D. or Ph.D./J.D. program in history who do not intend to pursue an MA in legal history or a minor field in legal history.
