This course is a graduate-level introduction to legal anthropology and law and society scholarship. At the intersection of legal studies, anthropology, and critical race studies, the course examines the role of law in, of, and through culture and society. Key questions include: How are legal systems shaped by culture? How are cultures shaped by legal systems? Are all legal-cultural systems equal? How do differently situated individuals and groups engage with law? We will read widely from both classic and contemporary texts, with an eye to interrogating the logics of legal systems and how people use, abuse, subvert and leverage them. Focusing broadly on how law matters in everyday lives, we will address law’s changing relationship to discipline, power, justice, and governmentality. Topics to be covered include colonialism, human rights, access to justice, legal pluralism and the “rule of law,” bureaucracy and governing, and citizenship and sovereignty.