Undergraduate Module Descriptor

LAW3205: Law, Testimony and Trauma

This module descriptor refers to the 2022/3 academic year.

Module Aims

You will take part in developing knowledge in the field by conducting your own research project on the legal response to a traumatic event that you will choose to analyse. During lectures and seminars, you will receive guidance and support in developing both socio-legal research skills and research skills specific to the academic field. Socio-legal research skills include: planning a research project; ensuring that the project addresses the research question consistently; analysing a case study from a social perspective and from a legal perspective; building a bibliography according to decolonising principles; and developing critical thinking. The academic field specific research tools include learning the foundations of the field, i.e., its theories, concepts and case studies.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)
This module's assessment will evaluate your achievement of the ILOs listed here – you will see reference to these ILO numbers in the details of the assessment for this module.
On successfully completing the programme you will be able to:
Module-Specific Skills	1. Demonstrate the ability to critically examine how legal responses to traumatic events influence society. 2. Demonstrate an understanding of the elements required for a legal response to a traumatic event to be effective and empowering.
Discipline-Specific Skills	3. Demonstrate the ability to critically examine the significance of legal narratives, the ways by which they are created and their influence on society. 4. Demonstrate a critical understanding of how different approaches to lawyering shape legal narratives. 5. Exhibit socio-legal research skills.
Personal and Key Skills	6. Exhibit the ability to design an independent research project. 7. Demonstrate the ability to conduct group presentations, provide feedback and critique to your peers, and mature as a consequence of the critique and feedback you yourself receive. 8. Demonstrate an understanding of research conducted according to decolonising principles.

Module Content

Syllabus Plan

Whilst the precise content may vary from year to year, it is envisaged that the syllabus will cover all or some of the following topics:

• Critical, multidisciplinary perspectives of the concepts of ‘trauma’ and ‘testimony’.
• Theoretical lenses analysing the relationship between law, testimony and trauma.
• Central case studies in the field, which will include some or all the following: the Grenfell Tower fire, domestic violence, the murder of Stephen Lawrence, the Hillsborough disaster.

Lectures will be dedicated to learning the fundamentals of the law, testimony and trauma field, while seminars will be dedicated to understanding these fundamentals through work on individual research projects.

Learning and Teaching

This table provides an overview of how your hours of study for this module are allocated:

Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities	Guided independent study	Placement / study abroad
29	121

...and this table provides a more detailed breakdown of the hours allocated to various study activities:

Category	Hours of study time	Description
Scheduled learning and teaching activities	9	9 x 1 hour lectures
Scheduled learning and teaching activities	20	10 x 2 hour seminars
Guided independent study	9	Lecture preparation
Guided independent study	46	Case study preparation for seminars
Guided independent study	66	Formative and summative assessments preparation

Online Resources

This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).