"Democracy Contested"

[We have the following announcement.  DRE]

Democracy Contested? A virtual event of Cornell University to be held Thursday, October 29, 2020 at 7:00pm to 8:00pm.

As the U.S. Presidential Election nears, the nation’s courts, political systems and media are preparing for the possibility of a contested outcome. A panel of Cornell faculty experts will examine the history of contested elections in the United States and worldwide, while also discussing how disinformation and fake news reports might influence the election result and voter participation.

Moderator:
David Bateman, Associate Professor, Government

Panelists:
Kenneth Roberts, Richard J. Schwartz Professor, Government
Alexandra Cirone, Assistant Professor, Government
Julilly Kohler-Hausmann, Associate Professor, History

Osgoode Society's "Evenings of Canadian Legal History"

The Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History has announced "An Evening of Canadian Legal History,” a monthly lecture series to be conducted on-line via Zoom at 5:30 pm on designated Wednesdays.

September 23
Professor Jim Walker, “Legacies: The Impact of Black Activism on the History of Rights in Canada”

October 21
Professor Nina Reid-Maroney, "Vigilance:  Black Activism and Chatham’s Demarest Rescue, 1858"

November 18
Anna Jarvis and Filippo Sposini Present their Research

--Dan Ernst

Ho on Administrative Law in Tang Dynasty China

 [We have the following announcement from the Chinese University of Hong Kong.  DRE]

Greater China Legal History Seminar Series: Feeding the Emperor – Administrative Law in Tang Dynasty China by Prof. Norman P. Ho (Online)

The Tang Liu Dian (hereafter, “TLD”), compiled in 738–739 A.D. during the Tang dynasty, is an important administrative law code which lists out in great detail every Tang dynasty government office, as well as various official positions and their functions and obligations. The TLD is of great historical significance—it is regarded as the earliest fully extant administrative law code from China, and it served as a model administrative law code for subsequent dynasties, including the Ming and Qing dynasties. This seminar will examine Tang dynasty administrative law, as set forth in the TLD, through the specific lens of how the emperor was fed and will analyze Tang administrative regulations on feeding the emperor. This seminar will describe the specific agencies and officials who were responsible for feeding the emperor, as well as their specific functions and structures as provided by the TLD. Relevant rules in the Tang Code ?? (i.e., the Tang dynasty penal code) will also be discussed to provide a complete picture of the regulatory apparatus behind the task of feeding the emperor. Ultimately, from this examination of Tang administrative law through the emperor’s food service agencies and offices as set forth in the TLD, this seminar will also set forth some general observations regarding Tang dynasty administrative law and will argue that one of the key roles of administrative law in the Tang was to further enhance and protect the prestige, image, and power of the emperor.

Prof. Norman P. Ho is a Professor of Law at the Peking University School of Transnational Law (STL) in Shenzhen, PRC. His research interests broadly are in legal theory and legal history, and he writes specifically in the areas of premodern Chinese legal history and legal theory, comparative jurisprudence, property theory, and Asian-American jurisprudence. He has served as a visiting professor at the National University of Singapore Faculty of Law and a visiting fellow in the Center for Chinese Law (HKU Faculty of Law). Prior to joining the STL faculty, Norman practiced in the Hong Kong offices of Morrison & Foerster and Slaughter and May, where his practice focused on capital markets and private equity transactions. He received his J.D. degree from NYU School of Law and his undergraduate and graduate degrees in Chinese history from Harvard University.

CPD credits are available upon application and subject to accreditation by the Law Society of Hong Kong (currently pending).

Register here by 5pm, 17 September 2020 to attend the seminar.

Lee to Lecture on Contagious Diseases and the Rule of Law in the British Empire

[We have the following announcement from the Transnational Legal History Group Seminar of the Centre for Comparative and Transnational Law of the Chinese University of Hong Kong.  DRE]

‘Protecting Women and Morals? Contagious Diseases Laws and the “Rule of Law” Ideal in the British Empire, 1886-1899’ by Dr. Jack Jin Gary Lee (Online)

What does it mean for liberal empires to invoke the rule of law, on the one hand, and to expand their
control over subject populations, on the other? This article examines debates over the freedom of women during the repeal of the Contagious Diseases (CD) ordinances by the Protection of Women and Girls ordinances in the directly ruled colonies of Hong Kong and the Straits Settlements (Singapore, Penang and Malacca). Originating in Hong Kong, CD laws were used to contain the spread of venereal diseases among soldiers and other populations across the modern British empire. Officials employed these laws to police prostitution and subject working-class, “native” women to medical surveillance. While the compulsory medical examination of women ended with the repeal of CD laws across the British Empire, the Straits Settlements and Hong Kong continued to regulate prostitution for the protection of “native” women and their freedom, revealing the peculiar significance of the “rule of law” under liberal imperialism. In a historical ethnography of the “rule of law” ideal, Dr. Jack Jin Gary Lee demonstrates how officials utilized its central premise of individual liberties as a comparative frame of evaluation to formulate a racially differentiated mode of gendered sovereignty.

Dr. Jack Jin Gary Lee’s research and teaching examines the significance of culture, law and politics in social processes of state-making and governance. He is working on a book on the significance of law and race in the making of “direct rule” in the modern British Empire. Focusing on the re-constitution of Jamaica and the Straits Settlements (Singapore, Penang and Malacca) as Crown Colonies in the latter half of the nineteenth century, this project examines the workings (and postcolonial legacies) of liberal imperialism in relation to colonies marked as plural societies. Notably, Lee’s dissertation on this topic won the University of California, San Diego’s 2018 Chancellor’s Dissertation Medal (Social Sciences).

Register here by 5pm, 22 September 2020 to attend the seminar.

Tidmark to Lecture on the London Fire Courts

 [We have the following announcement.  DRE]

The Selden Society with the Four Inns of Court presents The Fire Courts: Successfully Delivering Justice in a Time of Plague and Fire, by Jay Tidmarsh, Notre Dame Law School, 21 October 2020, 5.30pm.  Click Here to Book.

1665 had been a devastating Plague Year. 1666 was going that way and then the Great Fire destroyed seven eighths of London. The international scene was bleak. Samuel Pepys despaired of London ever being rebuilt.

And yet, within ten years modern London had risen from the ashes, and with London’s resurgence the foundation for continued rise of the British Empire had been laid. Professor Jay Tidmarsh of Notre Dame Law School will explore the social and economic impact of the Great Fire and explain how a six-section Act of Parliament, which erected a novel Fire Court to cut a path through the tsunami of legal disputes that threatened the timely rebuilding of London, played a central role in the City’s redevelopment. Drawing on research into the London Fire Court as well the Southwark Fire Court established after the Great Southwark Fire of 1676, the lecture will also explore lessons for modern times: the circumstances under which government intervention can foster resilience and the ways in which the judiciary can be a key partner in recovery from disaster.

The Selden Society and the Inns of Court have joined forces to establish a new series of annual lectures open to scholars, students and the general public to show the relevance of a wider understanding of Legal History. This first talk on the genesis and impact of the Fire of London Disputes Act 1666 and how Fire Courts helped the City of London and other communities recover in a surprisingly short time is designed to have particular salience in our present uncertain times.

Kennington to Speak on St. Louis Freedom Suits

The Field House Museum of St. Louis, Missouri, continues its “online programming with a Speaker Series event on August 19 at 7 p.m.   Dr.
Kelly Kennington, author and associate professor at Auburn University, will be joining us [for a "live-stream author talk"] on her book In the Shadow of Dred Scott: St. Louis Freedom Suits and the Legal Culture of Slavery in Antebellum America.  Drawing on the case files of more than three hundred enslaved individuals who, like Dred Scott and his family, sued for freedom in the legal arena of St. Louis, she explores new perspectives on the legal culture of slavery and the negotiated processes involved in freedom suits.”  More.

--Dan Ernst