NOTICE: New American Journal of Legal History Website

The American Journal of Legal History now has a website.

As the website states,

The American Journal of Legal History was founded in 1957 and was the first English-language periodical in the field. Today, the Journal continues to serve as a showcase for outstanding scholarship on all facets of legal history.

NOTICE: Workshop on Louisiana Legal History

A workshop on “Louisiana: The Legal History of Europe in a Single US State” will take place in Edinburgh on 20-21 May, 2011. The notice on the Edinburgh Legal History Blog reads:

The programme is not finalised but currently appears as follows: George Dargo, “Louisiana in the Early American Republic”; John W. Cairns, “Planning and Printing a Code/Digest?”; John Lovett and Markus Puder, “Possession, Prescription and Uncertain Land Titles in Louisiana: 1808-1825”; Asya Ostroukh, “The Significance of Quebec Sources for Understanding the Origin and Nature of Louisiana’s Civil Law Codification”; Vernon V. Palmer, "Slavery and Louisiana Civil Law 1825-1870"; Agustín Parise, “Influence of the Louisiana Civil Code of 1825 in Latin-American Codification Movements: The References to Louisiana Provisions in the Argentine Civil Code of 1871.”

More information will be available in due course about, place, cost and so on.

This Louisianian recommends it.

NOTICE: Rogoff on French Constitutional Law

Martin A Rogoff has just published a text on French constitutional law: cases and materials (2011) with the Carolina Academic Press.

The description reads:

French Constitutional Law includes extracts from decisions of the Constitutional Council and Council of State, significant laws, important reports, and a variety of French legal writings (many translated into English for the first time). These materials are accompanied by commentary, notes, and readings from secondary sources, including a generous sampling of extracts from historical and philosophical texts, to permit an understanding of the French constitutional system in context. The aim of the book is to present French constitutional law from a French perspective—to understand how the French think about constitutional law and its practice. Dynamics of constitutional evolution in France are stressed, and special attention is devoted to the extensive and significant constitutional amendments of July 2008. The book deals in depth with the following matters: separation of powers and the structure and functioning of government, the evolution and practice of judicial review by the Constitutional Council, the role of the Council of State in the French constitutional system, sources of French constitutional law and their interpretation, the Republican tradition (liberty and human rights, democracy and national sovereignty, secularism, equality, social solidarity, and the indivisibility of the Republic), and the application of supranational law (international law, European Union law, and European human rights law) in the French constitutional system. This book is well suited for use in law school, as the materials are structured to provide the basis for class discussion of legal issues. It is also well suited for use in undergraduate and graduate courses in French, European, or comparative politics or history.

The book approaches French constitutional law from a historical perspective and should be of interest to many of our members.

NOTICE: Symposium on Comparative Early Modern Legal History (8 April 2011)

The 2011 Symposium on Comparative Early Modern Legal History will be held on Friday, 8 April 2011 at Chicago's Newberry Library.

Organized by Tamar Herzog (Stanford University) and Richard J Ross (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), the Symposium's theme is 'The Struggle for Land: Property, Territory, and Jurisdiction in Early Modern Europe and the Americas':

The struggle to possess and control land, both as property and as jurisdictional territory, was central to the formation of early modern European societies as well as their colonial domains. This conference will look at how Europeans and indigenous peoples defined the right to land. We will examine how so-called European expansion influenced the conceptualization of property and territorial jurisdiction and the relationship between them. Conference participants may explore how notions of property and territoriality changed over time; and how colonial needs and the encounter with new cultures reshaped these notions. In what ways did “international competition” and the emergence of an “international law” (to use an anachronism) modify property and jurisdiction? How did economic, social, and political developments influence new ideas and experiences regarding the land? In what ways did these ideas and experiences shape practical strategies for claiming land and asserting rights to govern it and profit from it? We are particularly eager to know whether these encounters encouraged, consciously or not, borrowing between different European legal systems as well as between settlers and indigenous peoples. How was the movement and refashioning of legal knowledge bound up with the movement of peoples and refashioning of modes of control over land? We would like to encourage an interdisciplinary conversation among lawyers, historians, sociologists, geographers, and literary scholars.

Tamar Herzog (Stanford History) and Richard Ross (Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Law and History) organized “The Struggle for Land.” The conference is an offering of the Symposium on Comparative Early Modern Legal History, which gathers yearly under the auspices of the Center for Renaissance Studies at the Newberry Library in Chicago in order to explore a particular topic in the comparative legal history of the Atlantic world in the period c.1492-1815. Funding has been provided by the University of Illinois College of Law.

Attendance at the Symposium is free and open to the public. Participants and attendees should preregister by contacting the Center for Renaissance Studies at the Newberry Library at renaissance@newberry.org or at 312-255-3514. For information about the conference, please consult our website at http://www.newberry.org/renaissance/seminars/legal.html or contact Prof. Richard Ross at Rjross@illinois.edu or at 217-244-7890.

Here is the program and schedule:

9:00 Welcome: Tamar Herzog (Stanford History) and Richard Ross (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Law and History)

9:05 to 10:40: Panel: Religion, Civility, and Debates over Property Regimes

Paper 1: Tamar Herzog (Stanford History): “How the Indios Lost their Land: Spanish Debates and Practices of Dispossession”
Paper 2: Dominique Deslandres (Montreal History): “Conversion and French Imperialism: A New Hypothesis on Territorial Expansion in Early Modern France and New France”
Paper 3: Rafe Blaufarb (Florida State History): “The Nation as Lord: The French Revolution and the Creation of National Feudal Dues”

Commentator 1: Frederick Hoxie (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, History)
Commentator 2: Richard Helmholz (University of Chicago Law)

Chair: James Palmitessa (Western Michigan History)

10:40 to 10:55: Refreshment Break

10:55 to 12:30: Panel: Strategies for Claiming Land

Paper 1: Antonio Stopani (Turin, Italy, Faculty of Archeology, Anthropology and Historical Geography): “What Territory Is Made Of: On Property, Jurisdiction and their Reciprocal Relationship in Italy, 15th to 18th Centuries”
Paper 2: Hal Langfur (SUNY Buffalo History): “Lawlessness and Land Grants: Gold Prospecting, Runaway Slave Communities, and the Acquisition of Private Property on a Brazilian Frontier”
Paper 3: Alan Taylor (California, Davis, History): “Remaking Americans: Louisiana, Upper Canada, and Texas”

Commentator 1: Emilio Kourí (University of Chicago History)
Commentator 2: Christopher Schmidt-Nowara (Fordham History)

Chair: Bianca Premo (Florida International History)

12:30 to 1:50: Lunch: Participants and audience members are invited to try the restaurants in the neighborhood around the Newberry.

1:50 to 3:05: Author-Meets-Readers Session on Christopher Tomlins’ Freedom Bound: Law, Labor, and Civic Identity in Colonizing English America, 1580–1865 (2010).

Reader 1: Julia Adams (Yale Sociology)
Reader 2: Stuart Banner (UCLA Law)
Reader 3: Paul Eiss (Carnegie Mellon History)
Reader 4: Tamar Herzog (Stanford History) and Richard Ross (Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Law and History)
Reader 5: Richard White (Stanford History)

Reply: Christopher Tomlins (California, Irvine, Law)

3:05 to 3:20: Refreshment Break

3:20 to 4:55 Panel: Property as a Foundation of Political Order and Political Economy

Paper 1: Govind Sreenivasan (Brandeis History): “Peasant Property Rights and the Public Order in the Early Modern World: The Holy Roman, Ottoman and Qing Empires Compared”
Paper 2: Allan Greer (McGill History): “Property Formation and State Formation: New Spain, New France, New England”
Paper 3: Claire Priest (Yale Law): “Creating an American Property Law”

Commentator 1 and Chair: Daniel Hamilton (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Law)
Commentator 2: Alison LaCroix (University of Chicago Law)

5:00 Adjourn

LAUNCH: Law, Crime and History journal

SOLON has relaunched its journal, formerly Crimes and Misdemeanours, as Law, Crime and History. The first issue contains, among other things, a conference report on the ESCLH's inaugural conference last summer. The full contents include:

Editorial

Debate Forum

•Anna Grear, ‘Mind The Gap’: One Dilemma Concerning The Expansion of Legal Subjectivity in the Age of Globalisation 1-8

•Sascha–Dominik Bachmann and Ulf Haeussler, Targeted Killing as a Means of Asymmetric Warfare: A Provocative View and Invitation to Debate 9-15

Articles

•G H Bennett, The 1942 Laconia Order, The Murder of Shipwrecked Survivors and the Allied Pursuit of Justice 1945-46 16-34

•Yann Philippe, Community Mothers or Impromptu Actresses? The Multifaceted Experience of Women in the New York Police Department (1900-1941) 35-61

•Fran Wright, The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same: Criminal Law, Down Syndrome, and a Life Worth Living 62-85

Discussion Papers

•Vaughan Jones, Human Rights and the Use of Law in the Modern State 86-94

•Henry Yeomans, Providentialism, The Pledge and Victorian Hangovers: Investigating Moderate Alcohol Policy in Britain, 1914-1918 95-107

Conference Reports

•David Cox, Courtrooms, The Public Sphere and Convicts: An International Symposium, (27-29 September 2010, University of Keele) 108-113

•Iain Channing, Personal Reflections on From School Exclusion Orders To Anti Terror Laws: Human Rights And The Use Of Law In The Modern State (SOLON Experiencing The Law Conference, 22 October 2010, Institute of Advanced Legal Studies) 114-120

•Henry Yeomans, Law and Historical Development from a Comparative Perspective (European Society for Comparative Legal History Inaugural Conference: 5-6 July 2010, University of Valencia) 121-124

SOLON Members' Research Interests and Current Projects 125-133

•Sascha Auerbach, ‘Lurid Dramas’: Race and the Legal Campaigns Against Vice in Britain, 1916-1930

•Mark Galeotti, Digging Out a History of Organised Crime

•Kelly Hignett, Crime in Communist and Post-Communist Eastern Europe

Note that this change is part of wider changes at SOLON. Watch this space.

NOTICE: Law and Marriage in Medieval and Early Modern Times

'Law and Marriage in Medieval and Early Modern Times', the Eighth Carlsberg Academy Conference on Medieval Legal History, will be held at the Carlsberg Academy, Copenhagen from 4-6 May 2011.

Additional information, gathered from the University of Edinburgh's Legal History Blog, includes:

Keynote Speakers

Prof. Charles Donahue, Jr. (Harvard Law School)

Prof. Philip L. Reynolds (Emory University, Candler School of Theology)

The upcoming eighth Carlsberg Academy conference in an interdisciplinary series on medieval legal history aims at discussing new approaches to the study of medieval law and legal practice. The eighth conference concentrates on the topic of law and marriage in the Middle Ages and Early Modern times. The sessions will address the following aspects of marriage: Marriage and Canon Law, Practicing Marital Law, the Concept of Marriage, Marital Impediments, Marriage in Late Medieval Cities, Economical Aspects of marriage and Strategies of Marriage, Family and Kin.

The conference programme is available here: http://jura.ku.dk/crs/english/calendar/eighth-carlsberg-academy/

The conference will take place at Carlsberg Academy, formerly the family residence of the founder of the Carlsberg Breweries, J. C. Jacobsen, close to the centre of Copenhagen (for more information, see: http://www.carlsbergfondet.dk).

For any practical inquiries, please contact:

Helle I. M. Sigh (Institute for History and Area Studies, University of Aarhus)
Kirsi Salonen (Department of History and Philosophy, University of Tampere)
Helle Vogt (Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen)

Please use this link to register: https://webshop.dpu.dk/default.aspx?id=4992

NOTE: I strongly encourage you to visit the Edinburgh Blog. Note, however, that our link redirects individuals to the Edinburgh Centre for Commercial Law Blog. I don't know what and I've tried, without success, to fix this problem.

CALL FOR PAPERS: Société Internationale de l’Histoire des Droits de l’Antiquité

The 65th Session of the Société Internationale de l’Histoire des Droits de l’Antiquité (SIDHA) will be held from 19-24 September in Liège, Belgium.

The theme is ‘Obligation in the laws of antiquity, from its source to its execution’:

As always, everybody will be free to offer a paper on any subject, even if it is not directly related to this general theme. The presentation shall not exceed 20 minutes.

The official language of the congress is French, but presentations can also be made in German, Italian, English or Spanish ….

For more information, see http://www.sihda.org/.

NOTICE: Twentieth British Legal History Conference

Information on the Twentieth British Legal History Conference is now available on the conference website.

The conference will held from 13-16 July 2011 in Cambridge. Its theme is 'Law and legal process':

The conference addresses the intersection between law and legal process, the ways in which the processes of courts and other tribunals, the practices of judges and lawyers, and the needs of litigants, have influenced each other and shaped the development of the law; and the influences in turn of legal doctrine upon the practices of those coming into contact with the law.

Note that the 'legal history' discussed at conference isn't only British, but includes American, Commonwealth, and European papers as well!

NOTICE: H-Law seeks Book Review Editor

H-LAW seeks an engaged, interested and energetic scholar for high-visibility appointment as an H-LAW book review editor.



Applicants should be willing to assume responsibility for a wide range of subjects in the fields of legal and constitutional history, both American and non-American. H-LAW book review editors have the full support of the H-LAW editorial board, including the contribution of reviews.

Junior scholars are encouraged to apply. Interested applicants, whether experienced book review editors or not, should send a short letter of interest and a copy of their CV to Charles L. Zelden, Chair of the Book Review Editor Search Committee [zelden@nova.edu]. Review of applications will begin immediately and the search will continue until the position is filled.

CALL FOR PAPERS: Conference on the Legal Histories of the British Empire

CONFERENCE ON THE LEGAL HISTORIES OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE

National University of Singapore, July 5-7, 2012

PRELIMINARY CALL FOR PAPERS

The First International Conference on the Legal Histories of the British Empire will be held in Singapore from July 5-7, 2012. The Faculty of Law at the National University of Singapore is the local host.

The Conference is supported by the American Society of Legal History, the Australian and New Zealand Legal History Association, the Forbes Society for Australian Legal History and the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History.

The Conference is designed to provide a vehicle for a wide ranging sample of current scholarship on imperial and colonial legal history – cultural, institutional, social, biographical, doctrinal, prosopographical and theoretical. The objectives are:

(1) to bring together scholars (senior, junior and graduate students) working in the fields of imperial and comparative colonial legal history, to share the work that is already underway, and
(2) to encourage those with an incipient interest in these fields and others to join in this scholarly endeavour and expand the field.

Without in any way limiting the range of topics considered at the Conference, the following are just some areas of contemporary and comparative research interest:

the treatment of Aboriginal and Indigenous populations; property rights; the treatment of the unfree - slaves and convicts; the administration of justice and the rule of law; constitutional evolution; the colonial judiciary; the legal professions; the transference of legal culture and ideology within the Empire; master and servant law; regulation of labour, labour movement and indenture; crime and criminal justice; formal and informal resolution of private disputes; law and economic development; the law and gender; women’s rights; the law of libel and press freedom; discrimination against ethnic majorities and minorities; martial law in colonial settings; internal security of the colonial state.

This Call for Papers invites submissions for both papers and panels. Submissions of papers should be accompanied by an abstract of 300 words maximum in length and sent to Dr. David Williams, Faculty of Law, University of Auckland (dv.williams@auckland.ac.nz),  cc. Professor John McLaren, Faculty of Law University of Victoria, British Columbia (jmclaren@uvic.ca). The deadline for submissions is June 30, 2011. General inquiries about the Conference should be addressed to Professor McLaren.

The Organizing Committee for the Conference is: Shaunnagh Dorsett (University of Technology, Sydney, New South Wales); Andrew Harding (University of Victoria, British Columbia), Renisa Mawani (University of British Columbia); John McLaren (University of Victoria, British Columbia); Jothie Rajah (Berkeley, University of California); Wes Pue, (University of British Columbia); Carol Tan (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London); Kevin Tan (National University of Singapore and heritage consultant); David Williams (University of Auckland).

NOTICE: Irish Legal History Society Bursary

REMINDER: The deadline for the Irish Legal History Society's bursary is 30 January 2011.



The bursary was 'established to subvent the travelling expenses of postgraduate students undertaking research into any aspect to Irish legal history.' It's worth €1000 annually.

NOTICE: The Lawbook Exchange and the Corpus Iuris Civilis

The Lawbook Exchange has published the Standard Critical Edition of the Corpus Iuris Civilis in three volumes.

Their entry reads:

Reprint of the standard edition of the Corpus Juris Civilis and the basis for all modern English translations. Originally published from 1872 to 1895, this is one of the finest examples of German philology and legal scholarship. In this edition, sometimes called the "Berlin Edition," Krueger edited the Institutes, Mommsen edited the Digest; the Code and Novels were edited by Schoell and Kroll.

Commissioned by the Emperor Justinian in 530 CE, the body of writings known collectively as the Corpus Juris Civilis reformed, restated and preserved Roman law. Its subsequent influence on European and international jurisprudence is difficult to overestimate. It has four components. The Code is the reformed legal system. The Institutes is an elementary textbook about it. The Digest is a collection of commentary by leading jurisconsults. The Novels is a compilation of laws and amendments subsequent to the Code.

FIRST ANNIVERSARY OF THE ESCLH

The European Society for Comparative Legal History, founded on 5 December 2009 (St Nicholas' Eve) in The Hague, recently celebrated its first anniversary.

Over the past twelve months, we established this blog, held a very successful inaugural conference, and launched a collective project on Western legal traditions with the Ius Commune Casebook Series and Hart Publishing.

It's been a good year.

We want to thank all of those who have helped with our work and invite anyone who hasn't already become a member to do so now.

OFFER: Hart Publishing Discount for Comparative Law Blog Readers

Members should know about the following generous standing offer from Hart Publishing for Comparative Law Blog readers:
Hart Publishing is delighted to offer readers of the comparativelawblog 20% discount on their comparative law titles. To receive the discount on any comparative law book please quote reference ‘CLB’ when placing your order. If you are ordering online then please quote the reference in the special instructions field. Please note that the discount will not show up on your order confirmation but will be applied when your order is processed.

Call for Papers: 2011 Meeting of the American Society for Legal History

Call for Papers: 2011 Meeting of the American Society for Legal History

The 2011 meeting of the American Society for Legal History will be in Atlanta, Georgia, November 10-13, 2011. The ASLH invites proposals on any facet or period of legal history, anywhere in the world. In selecting presenters, the Program Committee will give preference to those who did not present at last year’s meeting. Among the people selected to present, limited financial assistance will be available for those in need—with special priority given to graduate students and post-docs, as well as scholars traveling from abroad.


Proposals for both panels and individual papers are welcome. As concerns panels, the Program Committee encourages the submission of a variety of different types of proposals, including:

• classical 3-paper panels (with a separate commentator and chair)
• incomplete 2-paper panels (with a separate commentator and chair), which the Committee will complete with at least 1 more paper
• panels of 4 or more papers (with a separate commentator and chair)
• author-meets-reader panels
• roundtable discussions

Panel proposals should include the following:

• A 300-word description of the panel
• A c.v. for each presenter (including complete contact info)
• In the case of paper-based panels only, a 300-word abstract of each paper (as well as a draft of the paper, if possible)

Individual paper proposals should include:

• A c.v. for each presenter (including complete contact info)
• A 300-word abstract of each paper (as well as a draft of the paper, if possible)

The deadline for submitting proposals is February 28, 2011. Proposals should be sent as email attachments to Amalia Kessler, at akessler@law.stanford.edu.

Those unable to send proposals as email attachments may mail hard copies to:

2011 ASLH Program Committee
c/o Amalia Kessler
Stanford Law School
559 Nathan Abbott Way
Stanford, CA 94305-8610
U.S.A.

NOTICE: Leiter Poll on the Best US Law Faculties in Legal History

Professor Thomas P Gallanis has brought an interesting online poll to our attention. The poll is being conducted by law professor Brian Leiter on the best US law faculties in the area of legal history.

See http://leiterlawschool.typepad.com/leiter/2010/11/best-law-school-faculties-in-legal-history-the-poll.html

Perhaps we should organise a similar poll here ...

NOTICE: SOLON's Crimes and Misdemeanours becomes Law, Crime and History

I received the following message today from SOLON:

Dear All

when we launched the SOLON e-journal, Crimes and Misdemeanours, back in 2007, we had wanted to indicate through the title that this was a journal which was not just about crime - but even though we have always published material (think of some of the debate pieces!) that are more general law and history, it has become plain in the last year that the title has stood in the way of people offering us work, because some have not picked up (as we had hoped) on the 'Misdemeanours' element - after all, it does have a rather mixed meaning especially for an American audience, and we are an international network, especially now.

So after a great deal of agonising (especially over the new title), we have decided that the time has come to retitle the e-journal, laying Crimes and Misdemeanours gratefully to rest, and replacing it with a more straightforward, more inclusive title. So, the SOLON e-journal now becomes:

LAW, CRIME AND HISTORY

Having made that decision, we also debated again over whether there should be a final issue of Crimes and Misdemeanours, but it seemed more sensible, especially as several of the pieces in hand for it fitted better with the new title, to bury the old title immediately, and start 2011 afresh, publishing the first issue of Law, Crime and History in January 2011, so that it will be out in good time in advance of our next big confence, the 2nd Biennial War Crimes Conference (Justice - Whose Justice) in March at our usual London venue, IALS; permitting the conference report on that to come out in the summer. The second issue will be in good time for our next big conference of next year - Crime, Violence and the Modern State III (Law, Order and Individual Rights - Theory, Intent and Practice): in September at the Universite Lyon Lumiere, again permitting that conference report to feature in the next issue....

So LAW, CRIME AND HISTORY will appear for the first time in January 2011, with articles, debate piece, conference report and also, we hope some contributions from members of the network discussing what they are working on, as one of the things that SOLON wishes to do is to promote international as well as local interdisciplinary collaboration.

The broad intent of the e-journal remains the same: it will still be free to access and download, it remains a peer reviewed journal, and we are happy to publish both short pieces (including work in progress) and long pieces, as with Rob Falconer's article in what will now be the final issue under the old title. We look to publishing interesting and interdisciplinary papers, particularly welcoming those with a historical perspective (which is not the same as a historical chronology - a historical perspective or methodology is one which looks at even current and ongoing developments from the point of questioning why its happening this way, and not another....). We do hope that you will all consider submitting work to us, and that you will continue to read and support SOLON's e-journal under this new title!

Best

The Directors

(Kim Stevenson, Judith Rowbotham, Zoe James, Richard Williams, Lorie Charlesworth, George Mair, David Nash, Ann-Marie Kilday, Cassie Watson, Sarah Wilson, Samantha Pegg)

CALL FOR PAPERS: East Meets West: A Gendered View of Legal Tradition (10-12 March 2011)

The following information was posted recently on the Legal History Blog:

East Meets West: A Gendered View of Legal Tradition

Posted by Dan Ernst

Recently posted is a call for papers on gender and European legal history, which is important both for the conference it heralds and for news of the network of scholars that is organizing it.

The conference is "East Meets West: A Gendered View of Legal Tradition." It will be the sixth conference of the research network Gender Difference in the History of European Legal Cultures. It will be held at the Central European University in March 10-12, 2011. It is sponsored by the university's departments of Gender Studies, History, Legal Studies, and Medieval Studies.

Submit abstracts before December 15, 2010, to a member of the organizing committee: Dr. Grethe Jacobsen, Royal Library, Copenhagen, Denmark, gja@kb.dk; Prof. em. Dr. Heide Wunder, Bad Nauheim, Germany, dhwunder@t-online.de; Dr. Gerhard Jaritz, Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary, jaritzg@ceu.hu The organizers promise to send out responses by January 2011.

The "geographical frame" of the conference is "a global perspective with a basis in European legal cultures and with a special focus on Eastern Europe." Its chronological frame is from the Early Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century. The conference language is English.

The organizers have announced three themes: (1) "Gendered Legal Cultures: Theories and Methods"; (2) Gender, Community and Law, including property rights and economic influence, gendered work roles and guild membership, labour movements and the state; and (3) "Migration and competing legal cultures - towards a global perspective. " Presentations may take the form of papers, workshop presentations or panel discussions. The organizers stress that presenters should leave "plenty of room for discussion."

Here is the call's interesting description of the sponsoring "network" and its history:

The European network was founded at a conference entitled ‘gender difference in European law/Geschlechterdifferenz in europäischen Recht’ held at the Max-Planck-Institut für europäische Rechtsgeschichte, Frankfurt, Germany, in February 2000 and organized by Heide Wunder, then professor at Kassel University. The network was named “Geschlechterdifferenz in europäischen Rechtskreisen / Gender differences in European legal cultures” at first but has since changed name to the international network “Gender Differences in the History of European Legal Cultures”.

The first conference has since been followed by four conferences held around Europe. The second conference took place at the Centro per gli studi storici italo-germanici, University of Trent, Italy, in October 2002, under the title ‘Il coste delle nozze/der Preis des Heiratens‘ and organized by professors Silvana Seidel Menchi and Diego Quaglioni. At the closing of this conference the theme of the third conference was agreed to be ‘Less Favored - More Favored: Gender in European Legal History, 12th - 19th Centuries / Benachteiligt - begünstigt: Geschlecht in der Europäischen Rechtsgeschichte, 12. - 19. Jahrhundert.’ This conference took place at the Royal Library, Copenhagen, in September 2004 and was organized by dr. phil. Grethe Jacobsen, professor Inger Dübeck and (then) Ph.D. candidate Helle Vogt. The fourth conference, at the Institute of Mediterranean Studies, Rethymno, Crete, in September 2006, had as its theme ‘Gender, family and property in legal theory and practice: The European perspective from the 10th to the 20th century’ and was organized by professor Aglaia Kasdagli.

At the conclusion of this conference the themes for the fifth conference was decided to be 1) Gender constructions in non-juridical discourses and their impact on jurisprudence and jurisdiction; 2) Comparing legal cultures: Differences and similarities, concepts and methods; and 3) Gendered legal cultures in global perspective: Encounters and conflicts, transfers and interactions. The fifth conference was held in Frankfurt and organized by Dr. Karin Gottschalk, Goethe University of Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It had as its title ‘New Perspectives on Gender and Legal History: European Traditions and the Challenge of Global History’.

The network has its roots in the current flowering, often gendered, research in European Legal history, found in several European countries. The organizers of the conference have been especially committed to bring together young scholars and established scholars from all areas of Europe in the hope that it will inspire them to include a gendered perspective in their research and also situating their work in a broad European context. The search for common traits across chronological and geographical borders will also reveal which local features are unique and therefore of general interest. As can be seen from the places where the conferences have been held, the network has moved across Europe and away from Western Europe, which traditionally has been the focus for much legal history. The papers from the conferences has covered topics in European legal history ranging in time form the Early Middle Ages to the 20th century, and geographically from Iceland to Turkey. A few papers have dealt with Baltic and Eastern European legal history. However, much more awareness of this research is needed and the organizers expect that by placing the next conference in Budapest we will attract papers as well as scholars dealing with these topics

How did we miss this?

NOTICE: Colonies and Postcolonies of Law Conference (18 March 2011)

I just received information on the following:

COLONIES AND POSTCOLONIES OF LAW
History Department, Princeton University Friday, March 18th 2011


The conference addresses the centrality of law in the construction of colonial rule. We aim to examine how colonial law emerged as colonialists interacted with diverse populations in the colonies. The study of the relationship between law and colonialism has taken two broad trajectories.

On one hand, scholars have highlighted how law provided the instruments for the creation of the colonial state, allowing it to exercise a vast amount of power in restructuring the colony. Conversely, law opened up avenues of resistance for colonized populations. This conference aims to go beyond this dichotomy by focusing on law as a site of constant negotiation which produced new forms of bureaucracy and documentation practices. As colonial legal systems cast long shadows and formed the bedrock of the national legal systems today, this conference will also examine how these colonial legal regimes influence postcolonial nations. The last few years has seen a growth of interest in colonial legal history to which this conference hopes to contribute by bringing junior scholars together in conversation.

NYU Professor of History Lauren Benton will deliver a keynote address at the conference.

Sub themes

Defining Legality: Criminals, Outlaws and Rebels - New categories of legality emerged during the colonial period such that criminals and rebels became interchangeable notions. What makes a ‘rebel’ and a ‘criminal’? What counts as evidence of a crime? How were penal regimes created? How did colonial regimes contribute to the construction of the international laws of war and human rights?

Competing Legitimacies: Religious Law and Colonial Authority - The colonial state grappled with existing legal systems in the colony. Some systems were delegitimized while others were bolstered under the purview of colonial rule. By privileging certain forms of legitimacy, colonial states challenged traditional norms and institutions such as customary rights and religious laws. Why were certain legal systems granted legitimacy under the colonial rule? How did certain religious texts and figures emerge as more authoritative than others? How did the process of translation change understandings of key religious concepts? What forms of tensions were created between traditional authorities and the emerging modern legal profession in the colony?

Private Lives and Public Law - The modern colonial state crafted new boundaries between the public and private. For example, colonial projects of social reform transformed marital and kinship relations. How did the colonial legal regime come to delineate the private and the public sphere? How did colonized populations engage with this process of delineation? How did the changing legal order affect colonial subjects, in particular women, who often emerged as the sites for legal reform? Did postcolonial nations adopt colonial legal conceptions of the private and public spheres?

Constructing Borders - Colonial law demanded certainty of boundaries and jurisdiction, yet it operated within a plural legal order and had limited capacity to police frontiers. How were legal borders fixed? How did colonial populations choose between competing forums granted by neighboring jurisdictions? How did the emergence of the postcolonial nations complicate colonial mapping and jurisdictional jostling?

Law and Capital - The centrality of trade and capital to the colonial project is increasingly overshadowed by cultural and social histories. Law, in the form of land revenue, forest laws and mercantile regulations, was in fact, central to the economic project of the colonial state. Can law be used to bring economic histories in conversation with the social and cultural? What economic practices came to be legitimized with the colonial reordering of the economy? How did colonial law engage with older kinship based mercantile networks such as those of the Arabs, Chinese, Parsis and Marwaris?

Paper proposals should include a title, a 350-word abstract, institutional affiliation and contact information. Please submit proposals to coloniesoflaw@gmail.com by December 15th 2010.

Organizers: Nurfadzilah Yahaya and Rohit De, History Department, Princeton University

NOTICE: Rose on Legal History as an Academic Discipline

Jonathan Rose's 'Studying the Past: The Nature and Development of Legal History as an Academic Discipline' is now available on SSRN:

This paper pursues two themes. First, it argues that there is a commonality between the general interest in the past, the interest of historians, and interest of legal historians. Second, it shows that several ideas about the past commonly appear in all three contexts. In pursuing this themes, the paper begins by reviewing the initial study of past and the emergence of history and legal history in academia. It explores the various reasons that the early historians and later academic historians and legal historians studied the past and the different ways in which they used it. The paper then pursues in more detail the development of Anglo-American legal history as a scholarly tradition. It identifies three types of academic legal history: classical, liberal, and critical and discusses their natures and different uses of the past. Finally, the paper explores the substantial legal history scholarship and its relevance to scholars who are not legal historians. The paper concludes by stressing the importance of studying the legal past.