Preface navigating the transsystemic: a course syllabus.

• Author: Van Praagh, Shauna
• Position: Canada

Naming this special issue of the McGill Law Journal was not easy. On the one hand, editors wanted to give the issue a substantive label, to suggest the content in a clear and informative way. On the other, they wanted to incorporate the dynamism and diversity of the authors' work in a way that no one term could capture. Caught in a dilemma that mirrored the one their own professors faced at McGill's Faculty of Law in 1999, the student editors could have gone the sui generis route. Just as the academic programme at the faculty--characterized as integrated, pluralist, and polyjural--is called simply "The McGill Programme", this issue of the Law Journal might have been named simply "The McGill Issue". After all, it is McGill students who have invited these authors and indeed the very faculty in which the Journal is housed into the reflective mode captured by this collection. It is McGill students, interested in and motivated by the substance and form of their legal education, who expressed real commitment to publishing an issue dedicated to what they know (and experience) as transsystemic thinking and pedagogy.

It is true that "The McGill Issue" would capture locus, tradition, concept, and practice in a celebratory and confident mode. But it would also seem limited, self-congratulatory, and, perhaps, exclusionary. Wary of giving the name "McGill" some set meaning, of infusing it with "la sacralite", of foregoing engagement with messy "middle ground" in favour of a fixed destination, the student editors turned to the more generic and descriptive. In so doing, they have handed the authors the challenge of navigating the "transsystemic" and beyond. They have offered space for an ongoing conversation: a conversation with a remarkable range of contexts and directions and problems and voices, and yet a conversation in which the participants speak with each other and their readers. This special issue is an example of tree bricolage; a project that reflects the work of all involved and a project that calls out for further participation.

I am honoured to write a brief introduction to this gingerly (and yet enthusiastically) named special issue of the McGill Law Journal. The student editors have entrusted me with the task of giving a glimpse of what lies ahead, of provoking curiosity, of providing a compass. They have asked me to offer the first word. As one of their professors, I do so in the mode I perhaps know best: a course syllabus.

COURSE SYLLABUS

Research Seminar: To the Transsystemic and Beyond Spring 2006

Course Objectives

This seminar is organized around the writings of authors concerned with relations: relations among sources and norms in mixed legal jurisdictions; relations among law, culture, philosophical thought, and time; relations among juridical orders, legal traditions, theological approaches, and interpretive practices; and relations among individuals, aspirations, and social transformations. The authors we will encounter are teachers, scholars, and advocates. More significantly, they are explorers, travelers, and dreamers: they examine, they map, they offer critique, and they imagine. Taken together, their writings explicitly question the content and framework of classrooms, research projects, and reference points in law.

As a student in this seminar, you are given the opportunity to immerse yourself in the kinds of questions, projects, spheres of curiosity, and directions reflected in the work of these authors. You are encouraged to search for and...