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I now teach at Jindal and would wish to note that Prof Amita Dhanda was someone who really brought the subject alive for me at NALSAR.
OTOH, Arun Sagar & Rehan Abeyratne (who has now left) are AMAZING jurisprudence teachers.
I genuinely loved Arun Sagar's classes, his way of teaching, grasp over subject.
Oh, and Amit Bindal. Legend.
During the inception years of NLS, Juris was taught by the trio of Professors: Devi Das, Mallar & Vijaya Kumar. They also taught Pol Sci & Consti. Invariably all three courses got mixed up as they were overlapping conceptually. From the first year onwards (think second trim onwards) till about fourth year (again think eleventh trim) the three profs were present in all of the trims in between.
Though they were GLC outputs (using the def popular on LI) they were leagues ahead of then current pedagogy. Most students never saw such discussions, teaching, openness, etc. Atleast not in Indian academia at that point of time. It was refreshing: You could tell them they were totally wrong, and they would spend time with you trying to discuss it.
Last byte is on the library exam and take home exam that was given in the Juris II or III papers (don't recollect exactly). A prof needs to have a lot of courage to do that, and it showed the confidence they had in themselves and their pedagogy.
As far as I know, the latter was the first such course taught in any law school, dealt with "juridical unconscious" and trauma of and in the law.
I kind of sympathise with Comment 5, who calls jurisprudence useless. I believe that it has been MADE useless by certain professors who are taking the JURIS out of jurisprudence.
Jurisprudence should be taught with reference to LEGAL thinkers and people should be made to read hard cases, policy documents and apply concepts. It is applicable even in commercial contexts. For example, the legalities surrounding tax havens, information monopoly by Facebook etc., with reference to actual statutes and case law + legal theorists like Bentham, Hart etc.
I hope Oishik and Dipika take this in the right spirit.
I too am in full agreement with the criticism of Oishik and Dipika. While they have best intentions, they unfortunately marginalize the law in their courses. That said, I don't think "postmodern critical theory" is necessarily antithetical to a study of jurisprudence and it needn't be considered "separate". All of what you mention can be used productively to unravel the law as long as, of course, law is the main component. Dipika and Oishik should reconceptualize their courses keeping law at the center of focus. Even Spivak (whatever the criticisms of her are), considered to be a major figure in Crit Theory, admits that we cannot not have law in our discourses.
As far as I remember, their course was called "Jurisprudence II", which is, as you rightly point out, misrepresentative given that it was critical theory more and juris and legal engagement less.
I have attended their classes, Baruah's during my undergrad days and Arun's after I became a lawyer.