CFP: Legal History and Mass Migration

[We have the following call for papers.  DRE]

Legal Response to Mass Migration Between the 19th Century and the WWII 

Confronted with mass migration, since the mid-19th century Western legal culture was forced to face migrants not just as a sum of individuals, but as a phenomenon demanding new legal concepts and mechanisms appropriate to govern and regulate groups and collective subjects. European migrants moving towards colonies and the East led to a reconceptualization of traditional international law doctrines on state sovereignty in order to de-territorialize Western citizens who occurred to be in the Eastern countries, freeing them from the imperium of the local authority and entrusting them to their own consular courts. Whereas immigration into Western countries led to the adoption of protective legal strategies and exclusion mechanisms to bar the dangerous others, emigration of European citizens towards colonized regions and Eastern countries prompted the elaboration of exceptional safeguards and privileges for ‘civilizing’ migrants. The new challenges of mobility led jurists and legislators to reshape the peculiarity of ius migrandi through terminological as well as conceptual revisions (e.g. the notions of citizenship, sovereignty, territorial state, undesirable and dangerous alien), the elaboration of new disciplines such as international labor law and international migration law, and the creation of special administrative bodies or jurisdictions (e.g. immigration officers; board of inspectors; consular courts; inspectors of emigration; arbitral commissions for emigration).

The Legal History and Mass Migration project (PRIN 2017) invites proposals for papers relating to the theme of the juridical response to mass migration between the mid-19th century and WWII. Papers can be based on different methodologies and may refer to a broad variety of subjects, including, by way of example:

• application of methodologies such as global legal history, comparative legal history, critical analysis of law to the study of migration issues;

• relationship between local rules and international migration law;

• tensions between human rights’ recognition and border control policies;

• non-Western legal approaches to migration issues;

• construction of legal discourses, theories, justifications to support, contrast, govern, or limit mass migration;
  

• models of citizenship and integration or exclusion of alien immigrants in different countries;

• role of case law and/or resort to special tribunals with jurisdiction in migration issues as means of departing from ordinary rules and constitutional protections;
  

• institutional and informal mechanisms (such as ‘soft law’, role of unions or charitable institutions, nets of assistance of national citizens abroad etc.) adopted to deal with mass migration problems in different countries of both departure and destination;

• impact of mass migration on national and international labour law;

• racial paradigms and immigration laws;
  

• local/global economic impact of migration and its legal regulation;

• exploitation of criminal law concepts, discourses, practices to stir the public conviction about the social danger of mass migration

Proposals for papers are due by 30 March 2021 and should be submitted by e-mail at legalhistoryandmassmigration@gmail.com in Word format, following this order: (a) author(s); (b) affiliation; (c) e-mail address; (d) title of abstract; (e) body of abstract (apx 350 words).  Accepted papers will be presented at an international conference which will be held at the University of Naples in December 2021.  

Support for selected participants: funding for travel expenses and accommodation may be available. Please indicate with your paper proposal if you would like to be considered for a support, and if so, your expected expenses. All funding decisions will be made independently of paper acceptance.
Papers and pre-circulation: Please note that the conference panels will be structured around a short summary of speakers’ pre-circulated papers, followed by more extended discussion. It is our intention that accepted speakers will submit papers of no more than 4,000 words for circulation by Friday 22 October 2021.

For general inquiries, please email: info@legalhistoryandmassmigration.com

Conference Committee: Luigi Nuzzo (University of Salento), Michele Pifferi (University of Ferrara), Giuseppe Speciale (University of Catania), Cristina Vano (University of Naples Federico II).

ASLH Announces New Fellowship

 [We have the following announcement.  DRE]

The American Society for Legal History has established the Herbert A. Johnson Fellowship, made possible by a generous gift from Jane and Harry Scheiber. The fellowship will be awarded to an early career scholar who works on the legal history of North America and is selected to attend the annual Student Research Colloquium. The new fellowship honors the prolific legal and constitutional historian Herbert Johnson, distinguished professor emeritus at the University of South Carolina and past president of the ASLH from 1973 to 1975.

In noting the significance of the fellowship, ASLH President Lauren Benton explained, “The Student Research Colloquium has been a wonderful addition to our annual meeting, bringing eight early career scholars each year for a full day of scholarly interchange and collegial engagement. The fellowship helps to lay a permanent foundation for this vital resource for the newest members of our field.”

Benton went on to praise Jane and Harry Scheiber for their vision in establishing the fellowship. “The Scheibers’ generous support of early career scholars and their choice to honor Herb Johnson beautifully advance the ASLH mission of promoting the future of legal history while celebrating the contributions of our most distinguished scholars.”

The Herbert A. Johnson Fellowship will be awarded for the first time in 2021. The ASLH continues to work to create other named fellowships in order to fully endow the Student Research Colloquium, adding to a similar effort to endow named fellowships for the Hurst Summer Institute.

The Life & Legacy of John Jay

[We have the following announcement.  DRE]

John Jay (NYPL)

The John Jay Papers Project, Columbia University Libraries, and Columbia University's Office of the Provost are proud to present In Service to the New Nation: The Life & Legacy of John Jay, a  two-day virtual conference (January 22-23, 2021) celebrating the near completion of the Project's seven-volume series The Selected Papers of John Jay.

The conference events are free and open to the public. To attend the events, attendees will need to register beforehand.  For registration information and the full conference program visit In Service to the New Nation: The Life & Legacy of John Jay

Joanne Freeman, Class of 1954 Professor of American History and American Studies at Yale University, will deliver the keynote address "Life in an Age of Conflicts and Extremes." The keynote address will be held via Zoom Webinar on Friday, January 22, 6:00-7:30 PM EST.

There will then be four panel sessions to be held via Zoom Webinar on Saturday, January 23, 10:30 am-5:30 PM EST.

Panel 1: Diplomacy and Politics (10:40 am – 12:00 pm)
Chair, Mary A. Y. Gallagher (John Jay Papers)

Kings College and the Foundations of John Jay’s Diplomacy
Benjamin C. Lyons (Columbia University)

John Jay’s 1788 “Address to the People of the State of New York” and the Dynamics of the Ratification Debate: A New Look
Todd Estes (Oakland University)

Two Treaties, Two Diplomats, and Two Scholarly Editions: John Jay, Thomas Pinckney, and the Art and Practice of Scholarly Editorial Collaboration
Constance B. Schulz (Pinckney Papers, University of South Carolina)

Panel 2: Family, Slavery, and Abolition (1:00 – 2:20 pm)
Chair, Elizabeth M. Nuxoll, (John Jay Papers)

Mastering Paradox: John Jay, Slavery, and Nation Building
David N. Gellman (DePauw University)

John Jay and the Intimate Politics of Slavery and Antislavery
Sarah Gronningsater (University of Pennsylvania)

“One of them married Colonel Stuyvesandt, another of them married my grandfather”: John Jay, Genealogy, and the Shape of a New Nation
Karin Wulf (Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, College of William & Mary)

Panel 3: Navigating Networks and Publics (2:30 – 4:05 pm)
Chair, Herbert Sloan (Barnard College)

John Jay and the Press
Sara Georgini (Adams Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society)

Investing in Social Networking in Sarah Livingston Jay’s New York
Alisa Wade (California State University, Chico)

John Jay in Voluntary America
Jonathan Den Hartog (Samford University)

Did the Man Make the Robe? John Jay Dressed for the Court
Claire Jerry (Smithsonian National Museum of American History)
Bethanee Bemis (Smithsonian National Museum of American History)

Panel 4: Roundtable on The Future of Documentary Editing & the Founding Era (4:15 – 5:20 pm)
Chair, R. Darrell Meadows (National Historical Publications and Records Commission)

Sara Martin (Adams Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society)

Holly C. Shulman (Dolley Madison Digital Edition)

Jennifer E. Steenshorne (John Jay Papers)

Jennifer Stertzer (Washington Papers, Center for Digital Editing)

CFP: Congress & History

[Word has reached us of a call for the 2021 Congress & History Conference in the guise of the following open letter, dated December 8, from Burdett Loomis, University of Kansas.  The organizers tell us that the legal historian Maggie Blackhawk is among the organizers.  DRE.  H/t: JC]

West Front of Capitol, July 1861 (LC)

I'm delighted to say that Steven Smith (Washington University at St. Louis) and I will be host, via Zoom, 2021 Congress & History Conference. The conference will be held June 10-11. We welcome submissions – either individual papers or full panels -- on both contemporary and historical topics from all methodological perspectives. These topics could include legislative representation (including those focused on race or gender), legislative procedure, impeachment, congressional committees, parties, etc. Moreover, we enthusiastically encourage scholars whose work touches on Congress, legislatures, and legislation to consider applying, even if you do not consider yourself a “congressional scholar.” Likewise, we hope that historians and constitutional law scholars whose work relates to Congress and legislation will apply. We especially want to encourage junior scholars (faculty and graduate students) and first-time attendees. This small (~50 person) conference is a wonderful way to receive constructive feedback on your work and get to know the broad community of scholars working on legislative politics. We particularly seek scholars from and working on historically under-represented groups to make paper or panel proposals. In addition, the conference will have a poster session for graduate students to present their work, with an award for the best poster. The application deadline for all proposals and offers to serve as a discussant is January 20, 2021.

Here's a link to the application form.  Please submit the form and send a backup copy to me (bloomis@ku.edu), to be shared with Steve. Getting the word out about this excellent, small conference is important, especially beyond the traditional group of legislative scholars. Please circulate this to colleagues and graduate students who may not have received it and post this on list-serves that you may be a part of. Please don't hesitate to contact me (bloomis@ku.edu) or Steven (smith@wustl) if you have any questions. 

Although I’d love to host you all at KU’s Dole Institute of Politics in June, I’m afraid, for this year, we’ll have to keep our distance. Still, last year’s conference was a success via Zoom, and I’m sure this one will be as well. If you’d like to see the kinds of papers that have been presented at recent conferences, you can go to https://congressandhistory.mit.edu/past-conferences These programs are illustrative, and we certainly hope to broaden the scope of work in 2021.

ANZLS Program Now Available

Courtoom Scene, Sydney, 1817 (wiki)

The program for the 39th Annual Conference of the Australian and New Zealand Law and History Society, “an intensive 1 day world-wide gathering devoted to law in history” on December 9, is now available here.  The keynote plenary sessions are Joshua Getzler, Oxford University, on “Six Nations of the Grand River, military feudalism, and the roots of ‘honour of the Crown’”; Miranda Johnson, Otago University, on “Reckoning with a Pacific empire state: Race, nation, citizenship and the idea of New Zealand”; and a closing address by Dame Sian Elias, former Chief Justice of New Zealand.

--Dan Ernst

ASLH 2020

[We're moving this up, because ASLH 2020 has begun!  DRE.]

REGISTER FOR OUR ANNUAL CONFERENCE

Dear ASLH members,

We invite you to register here for the 2020 ASLH annual conference, to be held November 13-14.  The online program features a carefully curated selection of exciting panels on the legal history of colonialism, slavery and abolition, immigration, and other topics. On Friday afternoon a group of editors and other experts will discuss book publishing in the Covid era. To wrap things up on Saturday afternoon, President Lauren Benton will deliver her Presidential Address and announce ASLH prize winners. You can find the full program here.

Registration is free for all ASLH members, and you must be a member to attend. The ASLH warmly welcomes students, who can become members for as little as $10.

Join or renew your ASLH membership here.

We hope you will join us for what promises to be a fantastic – if unusual – gathering of the ASLH!

Sincerely,

Lauren Benton, ASLH President
Anne Twitty, ASLH Secretary
Kristin Collins, ASLH Program Co-chair
Ari Bryen, ASLH Program Co-chair

ANZLHS 2020

 [We have the following announcement.  DRE]

39th Annual Conference of the Australian and New Zealand Law and History Society

Join us for an intensive 1 day world-wide gathering devoted to law in history on 9 December 2020, hosted by Event Services at the University of Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand

Keynote plenary sessions will feature:

Joshua Getzler, Oxford University, on "Six Nations of the Grand River, military feudalism, and the roots of 'honour of the Crown'"

Miranda Johnson, Otago University, on "Reckoning with a Pacific empire state: Race, nation, citizenship and the idea of New Zealand"

A Closing Address by Dame Sian Elias, former Chief Justice of New Zealand

The organisers have accepted 39 individual papers and 7 panel presentations. They will be run in four concurrent parallel sessions throughout the day. The programme will be uploaded to the ANZLHS website page shortly.

The timings will be specified according to the NZDT time zone - which is UTC+13. We have attempted to time presentations so that are as reasonable as possible for the presenters (but will be difficult for some). The conference will begin at 9.00am and conclude at 7.00pm NZDT.

To cover Event Services charges, and to ensure a high quality of digital platform delivery utilising Zoom, Vimeo and Twilio, we are asking all attendees to pay a modest registration fee. In addition, the rules of the ANZLHS require all presenters to pay the Society's 2020 annual subscription. So 'full member registration' applies to presenters who have paid the 2020 Society subscription in advance; 'full non-member registration' applies to presenters (some of whom will have been members in the past) who have not yet paid the 2020 Society subscription. We are waiving registration fees for postgraduate student presenters. The portal for registrations will be launched shortly through the website page. The cost for registration is as follows in $NZ:

Full member registration: $130; Full non-member registration: $ 215; Full-time post graduate presenters: Fee waiver; Attendance only registration: $130

Graduate students are invited to apply for Kercher Scholarships. Five scholarship awards will be made that may adorn your cv even though there is no monetary element to the scholarship this year. Please apply to Katherine Sanders: k.sanders@auckland.ac.nz by 20 November if you have not already applied. Graduate attendees may also wish to enter their paper for the Forbes Society Prize. The Society's peer-reviewed journal law&history will consider submissions from those who present papers at the conference. In the meantime further information about the conference may be gleaned from David Williams: dv.williams@auckland.ac.nz