Property in History & Law
PROPERTY LAW IS ABOUT THINGS, but only secondarily. It is primarily about relationships between people as they pertain to things. As a result, although we commonly identify material and immaterial things as private, common, or state property, property law deals with the subset of human relationships that determines rights and responsibilities with respect to things. The institution of property law—the rules that define this subset of human relationships—arises in the context of scarcity. When things are scarce and accordingly hold exchange value, humans construct ideas of ownership. We have been doing so for millennia, or at least long enough that the subject of property law has acquired a reputation as antiquarian. Certainly in the common law tradition, many property law courses appear lost in the mist of English legal history. This need not be so. Property law deals with the allocation of scarce resources and therefore is also about the allocation of power. Understood this way, property law can be a lens through which to understand many of the most pressing social issues of the day. Similarly, the history of property law need not be dull. At least ten centuries of social change, economic transformation, technological innovation, and human drama can be seen in the customs and conventions, judicial decisions, and statutes that comprise the law of property in common law jurisdictions.
Douglas C. Harris, Review of Stuart Banner, American Property: A History of How, Why and What We Own, (2012) 50 OHLJ 465.
This seminar will provide students with an opportunity to engage with the idea of property, through the study of property law in its social context and legal setting, and as it changes over time. The seminar will explore historical methods in relation to legal methods of research and writing, and will equip students to undertake a significant legal/historical research project.