ARTICLE: Whitman on the Transition to Modernity in Criminal Law

Whitman on the Transition to Modernity in Criminal Law: James Q. Whitman, Yale Law School, has posted The Tran... http://t.co/hX4hVbLl9T
— Legal History Blog (@legalhistory) December 29, 2013

JOURNAL: Rechtsgeschichte - Legal History

As you may know, Rechtsgeschichte - Legal History, the journal of the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History (MPI-ELH), is available now both in print and online. This is part of a wholesale revision of the journal with the last issue. 

In the latest issue, Thomas Duve, Director of the MPI-ELH, also contributes an Editorial and a short article introducing a discussion of Harold Berman's Law and Revolution.

Highly recommended.

AVAILABLE!: Comparative Legal History (the ESCLH Journal)

The latest issue of Comparative Legal History (CLH), the official publication of the European Society for Comparative Legal History (ESCLH), has been published by the forward-thinking, helpful folks at Hart Publishing.

In addition to book reviews, the issue includes the following articles:

• Mediating Foreign Norms and Local Imperatives: Intellectual Property 'Law' between the East and the West, from Imperial China to 'Modern' Times - Hinchliffe, Sarah A
• Producing 'Lack as Tradition': A Feminist Critique of Legal Orientalism in Colonial Taiwan - Chen, Chao-ju
• The Kandyan Convention 1815: Consolidating the British Empire in Colonial Ceylon - Godden, Lee; Casinader, Niranjan
• 'Not a Question of Theology'? Religions, Religious Institutions, and the Courts in India - Heehs, Peter

Don't forget that members of the ESCLH receive a free subscription to CLH!

Spread the word and ask your library to stock us!!

- Seán Patrick Donlan, Editor

COMPARATIVE LEGAL HISTORY (JOURNAL): CALL FOR PAPERS

The editors of Comparative Legal History (CLH), the official publication of the European Society for Comparative Legal History (ESCLH), invite contributions: articles, review articles and book reviews.

ESCLH Members receive a free subscription!

The journal:

is a peer-reviewed international and comparative review of law and history. Its articles explore both internal legal history (doctrinal and disciplinary developments in the law) and external legal history (legal ideas and institutions in wider contexts). Firmly rooted in the complexity of the various Western legal traditions worldwide, it also provides a forum for the investigation of other laws and law-like normative traditions around the globe. Scholarship on comparative and trans-national historiography, including trans-disciplinary approaches, is particularly welcome. 

CLH has an exceptional staff and international board and is published by the forward-thinking, helpful folks at Hart Publishing.

The preface introducing the journal is available here; a sample article is available here.

Spread the word, become a member, and ask your library to stock us!!

- Seán Patrick Donlan, Editor

BOOK: Audren and Halpérin on French Legal Culture (CNRS, 2013)

Nomodôs signals the new work by Frédéric Audren (Sciences Po) and Jean-Louis Halpérin (ENS), on French legal culture in the 19th and 20th centuries (Paris: CNRS éditions, 2013, 334 p.).  Law is seen as a foundation of French society, as a cultural object, both perpetuating historical outcomes and influenced by contemporary events and ideas. An abstract and table of contents (both in French) can be found here.

BOOK: Vinci on admnistration and finance in "Terra d'Otranto"

Stefano Vinci, Regimento et guberno. Amministrazione e finanza nei comuni di terra d'Otranto tra antico e nuovo regime, Bari: Cacucci ed., 2013.

 

Abstract by the author:

 

"The book contains the results of a long process of research carried out by the author out of an extensive archival material consulted in the State Archives of Taranto, Lecce, Naples and Paris. Through the examination of the copious documentation, Stefano Vinci investigates the administrative and financial system in force in the municipalities of Terra d'Otranto, a big province in the Naples’ Kingdom, between the Eighteenth and Nineteenth century, giving particular attention to the changes by the French reforms and the effects that these were at peripheral of the Reign. Specifically, the autor examines the issues related to the organization of municipal bodies, the evolution of the national Parliament, the interference and usurpations of the barons and the resulting lawsuits filed in Naples, the state of the finances and the spaces of autonomy of the peripheral bodies compared to the central ones".

 

All information available HERE.

LECTURE: Sarton Medal for Legal History (Prof. Heiner Lück), Ghent (12 December, 16:00)

The Sarton Committee at Ghent University awarded this year's Sarton Medal for Legal History to prof. Heiner Lück (Halle-Wittenberg), on the proposal of collega proximus prof. Rik Opsommer (UGent) from the Ghent Legal History Institute.

Recent holders of the Sarton Medal include prof. Ditlev Tamm (Copenhagen), prof. em. Anne Lefebvre-Teillard (Paris 2), prof. em. Fred Stevens (KULeuven), prof. Pia Letto-Vanamo (Helsinki), prof. Serge Dauchy (Lille 2/Saint-Louis), prof. Emanuele Conte (Roma III), dr. Seán Patrick Donlan (Limerick) and prof. Randall Lesaffer (Tilburg/KULeuven). For more information on George Sarton, his importance for the history of science and the journal Sartoniana, see the Sarton Committee's website.

The Ghent Law Faculty formally delivers the medal to prof. Lück on Thursday 12 December, at the occasion of a public lecture on a subject of comparative legal history, "Flemish Settlements in Flanders and their Law in the Middle Ages". The lecture  will take place at 16:00 and is open to the public at large. Further information: Karin.Pensaert@UGent.be.

CONFERENCE: Seminar on Michael Stolleis's History of Public Law in Germany (1800-1914) (Paris, Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne/Institut Universitaire de France)

Nomodôs signals a symposium in Paris around the French version of the second volume of Prof. Michael Stolleis's famous work on the History of Public Law in Germany, 1800-1914. The event will take place on 3 March 2014. Participants include:

• Frédéric Audren, Chargé de recherche at the CNRS, (CEE-Ecole de droit de sciences po) 
• Olivier Beaud, Professor, Université Paris 2 (Panthéon-Assas)
• Nader Hakim, Professor, Université de Bordeaux 
• Pascale Gonod, Professor, Université Paris 1 (Panthéon-Sorbonne)
• Olivier Jouanjan, Professor, Université de Strasbourg 
• Jean-Louis Mestre (Prof. em., Aix-Marseille)
•  Michael Stolleis (Prof. em., Frankfurt am Main)

JOURNAL: Historia et Ius, No. 4 (Dec. 2013)

The Italian open access-journal  Historia et Ius published its latest issue (December 2013).

Contents (articles in Italian and English):

1) Natalino Irti, Violenza ‘conforme alla legge’ (da un carteggio fra Einstein e Freud) 
2) Gustavo Adolfo Nobile Mattei, Il problema della qualificazione giuridica della "Divisio Ducatus"
3) Emanuela Fugazza, Arbitri o giudici? Giustizia e magistratura consolare nei primi decenni del XII secolo
4) Giovanni Rossi, Il Borsus di Biondo Flavio: militia e iurisprudentia a confronto dall’antica Roma all’Italia delle corti rinascimentali
5) Francesco D’Urso, "Ed egli puote risposta dare, e mai non fece inganno" (T. Tasso). La raccolta di consilia di Ippolito Riminaldi
6) Daniele Edigati, Il dibattito sulla pubblicità e sull’oralità dei processi criminali in Toscana (1814-1838)
7) Paolo Marchetti, “Perchance to dream”. Personality modifications and criminal liability: a nineteenth-century debate between psychiatry and law
8) Francesco Rotondo, Diritto penale e malattia: l’epilessia al tempo di Lombroso
 9) Giordano Ferri, Studi di diritto processuale civile nella Facoltà giuridica romana tra Ottocento e Novecento
10) Antonia Fiori, Gli insegnamenti storico-giuridici alla Sapienza negli ultimi decenni del XIX secolo
11) Francesca Laura Sigismondi, La «funzione pratica» della giustizia punitiva. Le prolusioni romane di Enrico Ferri 
12) Emanuele Stolfi, La schiavitù degli antichi e dei moderni (a proposito di Marco Fioravanti, Il pregiudizio del colore. Diritto e giustizia nelle Antille francesi durante la Restaurazione) 
13) Fabrizio Mastromartino, La libertà di espressione nell'Illuminismo giuridico. Il diritto, le garanzie 
14) Lorenzo Scatena, Controllo sociale, moralità e giustizia nella Restaurazione pontificia (a proposito di Chiara Lucrezio Monticelli, La polizia del Papa. Istituzioni di controllo sociale a Roma nella prima metà dell'Ottocento) 
15) Blerton Sinani-Sami Mehmeti, A historical-legal overview of constitution as the highest political-legal act of a State 
16) Paolo Angelini, Alcune considerazioni su storia del diritto e slavistica (a proposito di A.V. Solovjev, Istorija slovenskih prava / Zakonodavstvo Stefana Dušana cara srba i grka, Klasici Jugoslovenskog prava, Službeni list SRJ) 
17) Dario Di Cecca, Positivisme philosophique et sciences naturelles dans la culture juridique italienne à la fin du XIXe siècle 
18) Alessandro Dani, Imperi, nazioni e minoranze tra Ottocento e Novecento (a proposito di Minoranze negli imperi. Popoli fra identità nazionale e ideologia imperiale, a cura di Brigitte Mazohl e Paolo Pombeni) 
19) Federico Sciarra, La personalità dell’autore dell’illecito penale tra Scuola classica e Scuola positiva (a proposito di Michele Pifferi, L'individualizzazione della pena. Difesa sociale e crisi della legalità penale tra Otto e Novecento) 
20) Sergio Marullo di Condojanni, Sulla natura dell'arbitrato (a proposito di Giordano Ferri, L’arbitrato tra prassi e sistemazione teorica nell’età moderna. Una nuova species nel genus, dall’Ancien Régime all’Italia del Novecento)

Articles are available in fulltext on the journal's website.

JOURNAL: Law and Humanities VII (2013), No. 2

The Law and Humanities blog reports a new  issue of the journal Law and Humanities (Hart  Publishing).

Contents:

• "Imago, the X-Ray and the Evidential Image" (Piyel Haldar)
• "The Deception of Cadence: Toward a Dissonant Law" (Paola Mittica)
• "Representations of Governance in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Europe: The Iconography and Dramatic Presentation of the Sovereign Ruler" (Christopher Harding & Nicola Harding)
• "Killing the Queen: ‘It lawfully maie be done" (Dominique Goy-Blanquet)
• "Literature in Law: Exceptio Artis and the Emergence of Literary Fields" (Ralf Grüttemeier & Ted Laros)
• "Pigoons, Rakunks and Crakers: Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake and Genetically Engineered Animals in a (Latourian) Hybrid World" (Jay Sanderson)

 Abstracts can be found on the Law and Humanties blog.

JOURNAL: Rechtskultur 2 (2013): Which methods do legal history and related areas of study use with their sources?

The trilingual thematical legal history journal Rechtskultur published its latest issue on 15 November. This year's theme is methodology, auxiliary sciences and sources in legal history. 

Contents:

• Stephan Wagner (Regensburg), "Die rechtstatsächliche Aussagekraft rechtshistorischer Quellen am Beispiel der mittelalterlichen Rezeption des Senatus Consultum Velleianum"
• Frederik Dhondt (Gent), "Looking Beyond the Tip of the Iceberg: Diplomatic Praxis and Legal Culture in the History of Public International Law"
• Lukas Gschwend & Pascale Sutter (Sankt Gallen), "Die Sammlung Schweizerischer Rechtsquellen und ihr Rechtsquellenbegriff"
• Saskia Lettmaier (Harvard), "„Law and …“: Wandlungen des Eherechts im Lichte sich wandelnder Subjektkulturen"
• Miguel Ángel Morales Payán (Almería), "Prozessformulare in 19. Jahrhundert: Leitfäden für das Vorgehen der Bürgermeister als Richter"
• Markus Würdinger (Saarbrücken), "Subjektive oder objektive Theorie? – Das historische Argument in der Rechtsdogmatik und Rechtspraxis"
• Josefa-Dolores Ruiz-Resa (Granada), "Legal Science as a Source of Law (Notes on its Practical-Normative Dimension)"
• Natali Stegmann (Regensburg), "Zwischen europäischem Menschenrecht und tschechoslowakischer Verfassung: Welches Rechtsverständnis die Charta 77 motivierte und bei wem sie sich Gehör verschaffte"
• Dirk Heirbaut (Gent), "Rapport de synthèse: Some reflexions on the methodologies of legal history"
• José Manuel Azcona Pastor (Madrid), "Debatte/debat/debate: características fundamentales de la  historiográfia y bibliografía sobre emigración española hacia iberoamérica en el siglo XIX: el caso vasconavarro"
• Stefan Rinke (Berlin), "Debatte/debat/debate: Governance und Unabhängigkeit in Lateinamerika: Legitimität in Räumen begrenzter Staatlichkeit"
• Peter Pichler (Graz), "Was ist "europäische Rechtskultur"? Ein kulturhistorisch-diskursanalytisches Statement"

More information can be found on the Journal's website.

BOOK: "Crime News in Modern Britain" by Rowbotham, Stevenson and Pegg

Judith Rowbotham, Kim Stevenson and Samantha Pegg, Crime News in Modern Britain: Press Reporting and Responsibility 1820-2010, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013

The Editor's description: 

"Sensationalist newspaper coverage of crime has been a matter of keen public interest. But what role has sensationalist reporting played in creating public understanding of the criminal justice system in England and Wales? This book provides an answer, presenting an engaging account of crime reportage from the late eighteenth century to the present day; from the era of specialist reporters to the days of modern investigative journalism.

Written in a lively and accessible style and locating familiar crime stories from Constance Kent to Sara Payne in their contemporary presentations to newspaper readers, the chapters explore crime news in broadsheet, quality and tabloid publications and explain its importance to how the criminal justice system has been understood. The book identifies why particular crime stories came to public prominence and how these were constructed and presented for popular consumption, offering new ways of thinking about reportage and the criminal justice system".

Journal: Law Crime and History Volume 3 Issue 3 (2013)

The new issue of the "Law, Crime and History" Review is now online.

Articles

Gary Wilson and Sarah Wilson, Criminal Responses and Financial Misconduct in Twenty-first Century Britain: tradition and points of departure, and the significance of the conscious past, 1-24

Lizzie Seal, Violet Van Der Elst’s Use of Spectacle and Militancy in her Campaign Against the Death Penalty in England, 25-41

Discussion Paper

Michael Gray-Fow, Assassination Before Assassins, 42-65 

Work in Progress

Jacky Bryon, The Uniqueness of Torquay: Government and Anti-Social Behaviour in the Early Nineteenth Century, 66-90

Book Reviews 

David Cox, Julie Peakman, ‘The Pleasure’s All Mine’: A History of Perverse Sex, 91-93

Daniel Grey, Elaine Farrell, ‘A most diabolical deed’: Infanticide and Irish society, 1850-1900, 94-95

Melanie Reynolds, Lucy Bland, Modern Women on Trial, 96-101

Conference Reports

Fiona Tate, International Legal Gaps in the Protection of Women from Violence, 102-104

To read the articles, click HERE

CFP: 16th Annual "History Across the Disciplines" Conference (Halifax, 21-23 March 2014)

What: 16th Annual "History Across the Disciplines" Conference Barriers and Bridges: Movement in the Atlantic World

Where: Halifax, Nova Scotia 

When: March 21-23, 2014 

Deadline: February 28, 2014. 

The Dalhousie Graduate History Society invites faculty and graduate students from all disciplines within the Humanities and Social Sciences to submit papers for Dalhousie University's 16th annual "History Across the Disciplines" conference to be held March 21-23, 2014 in Halifax, Nova Scotia.The conference is intended to embrace all scholarship that explores the dynamics of interaction between and within Atlantic communities. Of particular relevance to this theme are discussions of demographic, cultural, economic, religious, linguistic, legal, material and gendered change in a variety of historical contexts. The geography and chronology of the Atlantic World are defined broadly and open to debate. As such, all proposals will be given due consideration. 

Applicants should submit an abstract of no more than 300 words and a one page CV to the conference committee no later than Friday January 10, 2014. Successful applicants will be notified within three weeks and must provide the conference committee with a final paper no later than Friday February 28, 2014 in order to be considered for the John Flint Prize ($250 honourarium). The committee recommends final papers be 20-30 pages in length, though no strict limitation will be imposed.

The conference opens on the evening of Friday, March 21 with a reception and keynote address by Dr. Daniel Vickers, Professor of History at the University of British Columbia. Following panel discussions on Saturday, presenters are invited to experience local Halifax culture with us in an informal setting, details to follow. Kindly direct any comments, queries, and applications to the conference committee at:

dalconference2014@gmail.com

More information HERE. 

Katie Sue Gallant, Chelsea Hartlen & David Martin Conference OrganisersDalhousie Graduate History SocietyDepartment of HistoryDalhousie University

CFP: 2014 ESCLH CONFERENCE (Macerata, 8-9 July 2014)

Dear friends of the ESCLH,

This is a reminder about the 2014 ESCLH Conference, which will take place in Macerata, Italy, from the 8th to the 9th July 2014 and the call for papers. Further details are below, but a key fact is that those interested in presenting should submit the title of their paper, a short abstract (approximately 250 words) and a short CV before January 1st 2014 to the organizing committee c/o Dr. Antonella Bettoni, University of Macerata (antonella.bettoni@unimc.it)  

Organization
The European Society of Comparative Legal History Conference in 2014 is organized by the Department of Law, University of Macerata

Call for papers
The European Society for Comparative Legal History (ESCLH) – founded in 2009 – continues to highlight and promote the comparison of legal ideas and legal institutions across different national juridical fields. Following the second ESCHL Conference held at Amsterdam VU University (2012) dedicated to "Definitions and Challenges", the third ESCHL Conference will take place on 8-9 July 2014 in Macerata (Italy) and will be hosted by the University of Macerata. Under the heading "Traditions and changes" the Conference will develop a theme which is integral part of the challenges of comparative legal history.

Members of legal history and comparative law networks share an important and paradigm-challenging reflection on the concept of legal tradition. This concern blends skills and disciplines, such as the legal, social and historical perspectives in an attempt to understand law and how it changes.

The conference would like to encourage scholars to use the comparative-historical approach for working on the complex concepts of ‘tradition’ and ‘change’, both separately and in correlation. This aim raises several questions. What do we think is tradition? How is it made up, how is it ‘built’ or ‘invented’? How does it relate to concepts like recollections, historical store-room, juridical experience, legal culture, legal system? What does a tradition help, why and how is it used to promote or, on the contrary, to reject changes and transformations? Is tradition a synonym of ‘past’ and is change a synonym of ‘future’? Or instead does a dialectic prevail which can, at times, unite or separate tradition and change?
What role do jurists and doctrine carry on in this field?

Reference to traditions and changes helps us better use comparative legal history, opening up not just what happened, but why it did. In doing so we must reflect not only on categories as such but also on how they are used. We know that power and every legally relevant public or private institution has the tendency to legitimise itself making recourse to values such as tradition or rationalisation (understood also as an incentive to change). Two recent examples will suffice: the growing use of polyvalent categories like that of "western legal tradition" (both in the singular and the plural) or that, more recent, of "common constitutional traditions".

The Conference welcomes proposals on any area of comparative legal history which relate to the theme of "Traditions and changes".

The starting keynote address will be delivered by Michael Stolleis, Professor emeritus of public law and history of modern law at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, former Director of the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History. The final keynote address will be given by Lauren Benton, Professor of History, Silver Professor, Affiliate Professor of Law, Dean, Graduate School of Arts & Science, New York University.

 Factual information:
 - Those interested in presenting a paper at the ESCLH Conference 2014 in Macerata are requested to submit the title of their paper, a short abstract (approximately 250 words) and a short CV before January 1st 2014 to the organizing committee c/o Dr. Antonella Bettoni, University of Macerata (antonella.bettoni@unimc.it)

- The presentations of each paper will not exceed 20 minutes and should be in English.

- It is also possible to present a complete proposal for one or more panels (4 papers for every panel) with a topic within the field of comparative legal history.

- At the end of January 2014 it will be announced which papers are accepted. The abstracts of these papers will shortly thereafter be made available on the Conference-page website. For further information see:

www.unimc.it/dg/it/ricerca/conferenze <http://www.unimc.it/dg/it/ricerca/conferenze>

Contact
ESCLH Conference Secretariat
c/o Department of Law
University of Macerata
Piaggia dell'Università, 2
62100 Macerata (Italy)
tel: + 39 0733 2584336
fax: + 39 0733 2582566
e-mail: antonella.bettoni@unimc.it

Seminar: Citizenship and Power Strategies between Middle Ages and Modern Era (Rome, 22 November 2013)

What: Teorie di cittadinanza per il mondo medievale, 8th meeting of the seminar Cittadinanze e strategie di potere tra Medio Evo ed Età Moderna, organized by Sara Menzinger, Giuliano Milani and Massimo Vallerani in the framework of the PIMIC Project.

Where: RomaTre University, Law Department, 2nd Floor, Room 278, Via Ostiense 161, Rome.

When: 22 November 2013, 3:00 pm

 

 

Speakers:

Prof. Luigi Nuzzo (Università del Salento): Comunità indigene, modelli di cittadinanza e costruzione dello spazio nelle Indie Spagnole del secolo XVI

 

Prof. Enrica Rigo (Università degli Studi di Roma Tre): Nascita e Conquista: riflessioni su cittadinanza e territorialità nella transizione alla modernità

 

All materials available on ACADEMIA.EDU (only if you have a Facebook or Academia.edu account).  

REMINDER: Mario Sbriccoli Prize (Deadline for applications: December 15th 2013)

In short: The Mario Sbriccoli Prize, established by the University of Macerata thanks to the financial support of Mrs Annabianca Sbriccoli, aims at remembering the work of the scholar who has brought great prestige to the University of Macerata. The Prize consists in granting 1 scholarship, of a gross amount of € 5,000.00, for carrying out research work. The research topic selected will have to concern the disciplinary fields of the History of penal law and criminal justice, within either the Italian or International spheres. The Prize will be awarded to the best research project presented by scholars from all over the world, of no more than 45 years of age.

 

Deadline for applications:  15th of December 2013 at 1.00 p.m. (the postmark serves as proof of sending).

 

The application can be submitted in Italian or English.

To download the application form click HERE.

ANNOUNCEMENT OF SELECTION EXAM

PREMIO MARIO SBRICCOLI - MARIO SBRICCOLI PRIZE
(Issued by D.R. n. 601 – 5 th of November 2012, modified by D.R. n. 364 – 1 st of July 2013)

 

The Mario Sbriccoli Prize, established by the University of Macerata thanks to the financial support of Mrs Annabianca Sbriccoli, aims at remembering the work of the scholar who has brought great prestige to the University of Macerata. It also has the intent of contributing to a better knowledge and enhancement of the value of the "Mario Sbriccoli" Specialist book collection acquired by the University of Macerata.

NOTICE: ESCLH Panel at ASLH Conference, Miami, 7-10 November 2013

What: ESCLH Panel at the ASLH Conference
Where: Miami
When: 7-10 November 2013

The ESCLH was present at the 2013 American Society for Legal History Annual Meeting. Here a description of the panel:

ENTANGLED LEGAL HISTORIES:

FOLLOWING THREADS BETWEEN EUROPE AND THE US

This panel explores some of the ways legal threads run back and forth across the Atlantic from four particular viewpoints: the earliest financial regulation, the limits of intellectual property, the role of economic circumstances in forcing legal convergence and how morality and law have been named, framed and shamed in Europe and the USA. The panel will address themes of how economic realities feedback on legal conceptions and vice versa, how the limits of law affect practice on a daily basis and how law has been a medium for the resolution of complex political, moral and even religious values. The panel addresses these questions particularly from a comparative viewpoint, not accepting the historiography of one national view alone, but seeking suitable complements and comparisons to help make sense of the entangled stories.

 

The European Society for Comparative Legal History is delighted to be able to offer a panel at the American Society for Legal History in Miami, to showcase the diversity of work we do.

ARTICLE: Costa on a 'Spatial Turn' for Legal History

Pietro Costa's "Uno 'Spatial Turn' Per La Storia Del Diritto? Una Rassegna Tematica (A 'Spatial Turn' for Legal History? A Tentative Assessment)" is now on SSRN.

The abstract reads:

Una nuova sensibilità nei confronti dello spazio (e più in generale delle coordinate spazio-temporali) sembra svilupparsi in numerose scienze umane, dalla geografia alla sociologia, alla storiografia, a partire dagli anni settanta-ottanta del Novecento. Per indicare questo atteggiamento è stato impiegato il termine di ‘spatial turn’. Il problema impostato nel saggio è se e in che modo lo ‘spatial turn’ possa coinvolgere anche la storia delle teorie e delle istituzioni politico-giuridiche.

Numerous human sciences (from geography to sociology and historiography) have been developing a new attitude towards space (and, in general, towards the relationship between space and time), starting from the seventies-eighties of the Twentieth century. This new approach has been labelled as the ‘spatial turn’. Is it possible and convenient that the history of legal-political theories and institutions take the ‘spatial turn’ seriously? The essay collects some information, which can be employed for a better setting of this problem.

 

This is an Italian version of an English article accepted for M Meccarelli and MJ Solla Sastre (eds.), "Spatial and Temporal Dimensions for Legal History: Research Experiences and Itineraries", in Global Perspectives on Legal History Book Series (MPI for European Legal History), Frankfurt
Max Planck Institute for European Legal History Research Paper Series No. 2013-07

JOURNAL: Symposium on the History of EU Law (American University Law Review XXVIII (2013), Nr. 5)

The Legal History Blog signals an interesting issue of the American University Law Review, featuring a symposium on the history of EU law and its status as a new sub-discipline of both general and legal history.

Table of contents:
Critical Legal Histories in EU Law
Fernanda G. Nicola

Rewriting the History of European Public Law: The New Contribution of Historians
Morten Rasmussen

Toward a New History in European Law: New Wine in Old Bottles?
Michelle Egan

The New EU Legal History: What's New, What's Missing?
Mark A. Pollack

Rethinking the Legal Foundations of the European Constitutional Order: The Lessons of the New Historical Research
Francesca Bignami

Why EU Legal History Matters--A Historian's Response
Bill Davies

(source: Legal History blog)

PhD FELLOWSHIP at the University of Sheffield

Department of History PhD Studentship:

'The Social and Spatial Worlds of Old Bailey Convicts, 1785-1875’.

 

 

 

Background

This studentship is attached to the AHRC funded Digital Transformations project, ‘The Digital Panopticon: The Global Impact of London Punishments, 1780-1925’, a collaborative project between the Universities of Liverpool, Sheffield, Oxford, Sussex, and Tasmania. 

 

The project seeks to use innovative digital methodologies to investigate the penal outcomes of those convicted at the Old Bailey, by comparing imprisonment in Britain with transportation from Britain to Australia. The project will assemble large and complex bodies of criminal justice, genealogical and biometric data and use sophisticated visualisation and data-linking methodologies to map and analyse convict lives at both the collective and individual level. In addition to a wide range of publications, the project will create an electronic resource which will provide an integrated publicly available search engine for searching datasets containing life course data for the 66,000 Londoners who experienced the two penal regimes. The project is led by Principal Investigator Professor Barry Godfrey, Liverpool University, and Co-Investigators Professor Robert Shoemaker, University of Sheffield, Professor Tim Hitchcock, University of Sussex, Dr Deborah Oxley, Oxford University, and Professor Hamish Maxwell-Stewart, University of Tasmania. Shoemaker will be the principal supervisor of this PhD, with a secondary supervisor chosen from among the project team.

 

The doctoral project will constitute an independent piece of research on a topic related to the overall project. The student will be able to use evidence and electronic resources generated by the project; attend project meetings, workshops and conferences; benefit from working closely with the investigators and Research Associates; and be given the opportunity to co-write publications. Nonetheless, in consultation with the supervisors, s/he will be given the latitude to shape their own direction of research.

Studentship Description

The studentship will investigate the social and geographical origins and destinations of men and women convicted at the Old Bailey between 1785 and 1875, in order to shed light on patterns of mobility and understandings of identity in early industrial Britain. 

 

Using evidence of origins from convict registers and social/occupational and place labels in the Proceedings, the project will trace convicts from their places of origin through residence and work in London before their arrests, to places of imprisonment and subsequent life histories. Analysis of the language they used in trial testimonies will provide an indication of how identities were shaped by complex backgrounds.

Award Details

The award will cover the cost of UK/EU tuition fees and provides an annual maintenance grant (currently £13,726 per year) for three years. The studentship will commence on 1 February 2014.

 

All eligibility details are available HERE.

FELLOWSHIPS: Newberry Library Fellowships in the Humanities 2014-2015

We are glad to post the call for application for Short-Term and Long-Term Fellowships in the Humanities at the Newberry Library:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Newberry Library Fellowships in the Humanities, 2014-15

The application deadline for Newberry Library Long-Term Fellowships is quickly approaching! Additionally, we offer Short-Term Fellowship opportunities for smaller-scale research projects. Please read on for more information.

The Newberry's fellowships support humanities research in residence at the Newberry. If you study the humanities, we have something for you. Our collection is wide-ranging, rich, and sometimes eccentric. We offer a lively interdisciplinary community of researchers; individual consultations on your research with staff curators, librarians, and scholars; and an array of scholarly and public programs. All applicants are strongly encouraged to examine the Newberry's online catalog before applying.

LONG-TERM FELLOWSHIPS
http://www.newberry.org/long-term-fellowships

These fellowships support research and writing by post-doctoral scholars. The purpose is to support fellows as they develop or complete larger-scale studies which draw on our collections, and also to nourish intellectual exchange among fellows and the Library community. Fellowship terms range from four to twelve months with stipends of up to $50,400.

Deadline: December 1, 2013


SHORT-TERM FELLOWSHIPShttp://www.newberry.org/short-term-fellowships

PhD candidates and post-doctoral scholars are eligible for short-term fellowships. The purpose is to help researchers gain access to specific materials at the Newberry that are not readily available to them elsewhere. Short-term fellowships are usually awarded for a period of one month. Most are restricted to scholars who live and work outside the Chicago area. Most stipends are $2,500 per month.

We also invite short-term fellowship applications from teams of two or three scholars to collaborate intensively on a single, substantive project. Each scholar on a team-fellowship is awarded a full stipend.

Deadline: January 15, 2014"

More information is available HERE.

CALL FOR PAPERS: XXth European Forum of Young Legal Historians (Cambridge, 2-5 April 2014): "Common Laws"

 

The Association of Young Legal Historians (AYLH) published the call for this year's annual Forum of Young Legal Historians. The call can be consulted online or in the quoted textx hereunder:

2014 will mark not only twenty years of Annual Forums organised by the Association of Young Legal Historians, but also the first time an Annual Forum has been held in a common law jurisdiction. As such, the theme of the XXth Annual Forum—‘common laws’—invites attention both to the common law legal tradition, and also to the recurrent themes of legal commonality, harmonisation and integration that have been a feature of the Association’s Annual Forums over the past two decades.

The common law is above all a system built on the accumulation of case law over time. This provides rich materials for legal historians, whether in the form of contextualised case studies, the identification and critique of ‘leading cases’, or an analysis of changing patterns of case law and litigation across history. Case law is, however, by no means unique to the common law tradition. Judicial decisions play a leading role in mixed systems like Scots law, and even in codified civilian systems large domains of the law have historically been the product of case law rather than legislation; administrative law in France being one notable example. In addition to presentations on the history of the common law itself, the organisers therefore also welcome presentations addressing case law, case studies, and ‘leading cases’ in all legal systems and across all periods of history.

‘Common law’ can, of course, be understood in more than one sense. In particular, neither the United Kingdom nor the University of Cambridge are isolated from the tradition of the ius commune. English common law is, of course, not the only system of law operating within the UK; and Roman civil law is to this day a foundational aspect of the legal curriculum at the University of Cambridge. In particular, the Regius Professorship of Civil Law has since its establishment in 1540 served as a focus for teaching and research in Roman law in Cambridge. The organisers therefore welcome presentations addressing the ius commune and the common inheritance of Roman civil law.

Finally, the forum’s theme invites attention to the idea of commonality across legal systems. Within Europe, the EU has served as an obvious focal point for legal harmonisation, as have wider international organisations such as UNIDROIT, UNCITRAL, or the Hague Conference on Private International Law. At the level of individual states, points of commonality—especially in the field of legislation—can be found in places as diverse as Germany and Japan, or Switzerland and Turkey. Each of these efforts at harmonisation and commonality has a history, and the organisers therefore also invite presentations that address this theme.

Presentations may be given in any major language, but the organisers advise that English-language presentations are likely to receive the widest audience.  Intending presenters are encouraged to send an application consisting of an abstract in either English or French (not more than 350 words), and a brief curriculum vitae to forum2014@aylh.org before 31 January 2014. The conference fee will be £70 for presenters, and £85 for others.  Further information about the Association of Young Legal Historians and past Annual Forums can be found at www.aylh.org

We look forward to welcoming you to Cambridge next spring.  Organizers: James McComish, Jacob Currie, Astron Douglas, Philip Murray, Joe Sampson, Andreas Televantos

IMPORTANT: MARIO SBRICCOLI PRIZE (deadline for applications: December 15th, 2013)

In short: The Mario Sbriccoli Prize, established by the University of Macerata thanks to the financial support of Mrs Annabianca Sbriccoli, aims at remembering the work of the scholar who has brought great prestige to the University of Macerata. The Prize consists in granting 1 scholarship, of a gross amount of € 5,000.00, for carrying out research work. The research topic selected will have to concern the disciplinary fields of the History of penal law and criminal justice, within either the Italian or International spheres. The Prize will be awarded to the best research project presented by scholars from all over the world, of no more than 45 years of age.

 

Deadline for applications:  15th of December 2013 at 1.00 p.m. (the postmark serves as proof of sending).

 

The application can be submitted in Italian or English.

To download the application form click HERE.

ANNOUNCEMENT OF SELECTION EXAM

PREMIO MARIO SBRICCOLI - MARIO SBRICCOLI PRIZE

(Issued by D.R. n. 601 – 5 th of November 2012, modified by D.R. n. 364 – 1 st of July 2013)

 

The Mario Sbriccoli Prize, established by the University of Macerata thanks to the financial support of Mrs Annabianca Sbriccoli, aims at remembering the work of the scholar who has brought great prestige to the University of Macerata. It also has the intent of contributing to a better knowledge and enhancement of the value of the "Mario Sbriccoli" Specialist book collection acquired by the University of Macerata.

Article 1
1. The Prize consists in granting N°. 1 scholarship, of a gross amount of € 5,000.00, for carrying out research work.

2. The research work will be carried out, for not less than 45 days, at the "Mario Sbriccoli" Specialist book collection hosted within the Library of Studi storici (Historical Studies) of the Department of Law of the University of Macerata, Via Garibaldi 20.

3. The research topic selected will have to concern the disciplinary fields of the History of penal law and criminal justice, within either the Italian or International spheres.

4. Research time at the "Sbriccoli" Specialist book collection must contribute to the compiling of a scientific essay which may be published, in English or French, upon being previously accepted by the Editorial Committee, in the Crime, History & Societies journal (Librairie Droz).

Article 2

1. The Prize will be awarded to the best research project presented by scholars from all over the world, of no more than 45 years of age, and this must concern the disciplinary fields of The History of penal law and criminal justice, whether within the Italian or International spheres.

2. Candidates must have been awarded a Ph.D. title recognised throughout the world.

Article 3
1. The application to take part in the Prize award, to be drawn up on a signed sheet of A4 paper or else in accordance with the Appendix 1 form (enclosed), must be submitted (personally presented or sent to), at the risk of being excluded, by and not later than the 15th of December 2013 on the 1.00 p.m. (the postmark serves as proof of sending), to the following address:

 

Università degli studi di Macerata
Area Ricerca Scientifica e Internazionalizzazione
Piaggia della Torre, 8
62100 Macerata.