The deadline for applications is 8th September and further particulars can be found here:
Call for Visitors 2024-25- early-mid career
A blog about law, the humanities, and popular culture
From Honor Tuohy, University of Galway:
Announcement of a workshop: Understanding and Doing Equality: Building Synergies between Arts and Human Rights
Workshop
Understanding and Doing Equality: Building Synergies between Arts and Human Rights
This is a one-day workshop on May 29th 2025 at the Centre for Advanced Study, Sofia, Bulgaria.
Call for contributors:
This workshop aims to explore themes focusing on methodologies and approaches for the creation of synergies between arts (understood broadly) and the equality-oriented dimension of human rights. What uses of arts are particularly conducive to the sharing of lived experiences of disadvantage to evoke compassion and create mutual understanding? How can artistic means be used to communicate ideas about equality, including in their scientific complexity? What specific forms of artistic communication are most conducive to positive change?
A full outline of the workshop is available in the document attached. A 300 words abstract should be sent to the organisers by 30 April 2025.
Please contact Honor Tuohy (H.Tuohy3@universityofgalway.ie) or Ekaterina Yahyaoui (ekaterina.yahyaoui@universityofgalway.ie) for more information and/or see attached document.
Theme
Human rights and equality appear as ideals appealing to most if not all people across the globe.
However, the way people understand and experience these ideals can vary significantly since even the
most conserva=ve poli=cians or ac=vists use these ideals in some shape or form. This reveals
complexity and mul=dimensionality of equality and human rights which o?en hampers efficient public
debate, communica=on and mutual understanding. At the same =me, the concept of equality is the
subject of philosophical and academic discussions of which many contain difficult and not immediately
accessible language. The experience of (in)equality is also not immediately comprehensible by those
who have not personally been vic=ms of any sort of discrimina=on.
Arts and various ar=s=c prac=ces – visual arts, performing arts, or literary arts – have long been
recognised for their ability to document human rights abuses. Arts also play a role in increasing
empathy, communica=ng feelings and emo=ons. Discussions about arts’ ability to contribute to
building stronger communi=es, transla=ng human experiences and knowledge into a more accessible
form, or ac=ng as a crea=ve force leading to posi=ve change in our socie=es are ongoing.
This workshop aims to explore further these themes focusing on methodologies and approaches for
crea=on of synergies between arts (understood broadly) and the equality-oriented dimension human
rights. What uses of arts are par=cularly conduc=ve to sharing of lived experiences of disadvantage
to evoke compassion and create mutual understanding? How can ar=s=c means be used to communicate
ideas about equality, including in their scien=fic complexity? What specific forms of ar=s=c
communica=on are most conduc=ve to posi=ve change?
We invite papers on these and related ques=ons from scholars, ar=sts and ac=vists alike. Inter- and
transdisciplinary approaches are the most welcome. Equally, we are looking for both theore=cally
informed contribu=ons as well as empirically grounded work, including examples of successful novel
synergies and collabora=ons.
About the workshop
The one-day workshop will be held on 29 May 2025 at the Centre for Advanced Study, Sofia Bulgaria.
The par=cipants will be required to submit a 1000 words concept paper by 22 May 2025. While this
will be an in-person workshop, online aWendance can be facilitated in jus=fied circumstances. The
workshop will also serve as a form of feedback on future publishable outputs as the organisers aim
to submit an edited volume proposal to a reputable publisher. Publica=on plans will be discussed
during the workshop.
While the par=cipa=on in the workshop is free, the organisers are unable to cover any travel or
accommoda=on expenses.
Submission process
Please submit a 300 words abstract to the organisers Ekaterina Yahyaoui
(Ekaterina.yahyaoui@universityofgalway.ie) and Honor Tuohy (H.Tuohy3@universityofgalway.ie) (please
use both emails) by 30 April 2025. Decisions will be communicated in the following week.
Great Trials and the Law in the Historical Imagination: A Law and Humanities Approach introduces readers to the history of law and issues in historical, legal, and artistic interpretation by examining six well-known historical trials through works of art that portray them. Great Trials provides readers with an accessible, non-dogmatic introduction to the interdisciplinary ‘law and humanities’ approach to law, legal history, and legal interpretation. By examining how six famous/notorious trials in Western history have been portrayed in six major works of art, the book shows how issues of legal, historical, and artistic interpretation can become intertwined: the different ways we embed law in narrative, how we bring conscious and subconscious conceptions of history to our interpretation of law, and how aesthetic predilections and moral commitments to the law may influence our views of history. The book studies well-known depictions of the trials of Socrates, Cicero, Jesus, Thomas More, the Salem ‘witches’, and John Scopes and provides innovative analyses of those works. The epilogue examines how historical methodology and historical imagination are crucial to both our understanding of the law and our aesthetic choices through various readings of Harper Lee’s beloved character, Atticus Finch. The first book to employ a ‘law and humanities’ approach to delve into the institution of the trial, and what it means in different legal systems at different historical times, this book will appeal to academics, students and others with interests in legal history, law and popular culture and law and the humanities.
This Essay reflects on art to make two points. It first argues that originalism is not a promising path for progressive causes. It then argues that as the Constitution is amended, the meaning of the entire document is altered, and earlier text should be interpreted in light of what has changed.Download the essay from SSRN at the link.
The Institute of Advanced Legal Studies is pleased to announce a call for Academic Visitors and Visiting Artists for the 2024-25 academic year. This is part of an exciting new initiative to develop the field of Law and the Humanities at IALS under the leadership of its new Professor, Dr Anat Rosenberg.
The deadline for applications is 8th September and further particulars can be found here:
Call for Visitors 2024-25- early-mid career
Newly published:
Haiyan Lee, A Certain Justice: Toward an Ecology of the Chinese Legal Imagination (University of Chicago Press, 2023). Here from the publisher's website is a description of the book's contents.
To many outsiders, China has an image as a realm of Oriental despotism where law is at best window dressing and at worst an instrument of coercion and tyranny. In this highly original contribution to the interdisciplinary field of law and humanities, Haiyan Lee contends that this image arises from a skewed understanding of China’s political-legal culture, particularly the failure to distinguish what she calls high justice and low justice.
In the Chinese legal imagination, Lee shows, justice is a vertical concept, with low justice between individuals firmly subordinated to the high justice of the state. China’s political-legal culture is marked by a mistrust of law’s powers, and as a result, it privileges substantive over procedural justice. Calling on a wide array of narratives—stories of crime and punishment, subterfuge and exposé, guilt and redemption—A Certain Justice helps us recognize the fight for justice outside the familiar arenas of liberal democracy and the rule of law.
Where Law Meets The Humanities. The
contributors to this special issue of Talking
Humanities provide an important sample of how the humanities
provide a vital sensibility for cutting edge legal scholarship today. In his
contribution (The humanities and law: more intertwined than you might think),
David Sugarman explores the often uneasy and complex relationship between
law and the humanities, and the growth and development of influences from the
humanities within legal scholarship. Mara Malagodi (How legal briefs find new life in celluloid) focuses on
the relationship between law and film, and its role in enabling our
understanding of ‘justice’. Jill Marshall (The power of listening: how survivors’ voices can transform human
rights) explores the importance of narrative and storytelling in
fostering a victim-centred approach to International Human Rights Law and
International Criminal Law. Michael Thomson (From ‘heartbeats’ to bounty hunters – the legal complexities of
abortion) situates the current American challenge to the
constitutional right to abortion through a historical analysis of the
relationship between law and medicine, while connecting this to the histories
of slavery which continue to leave their imprint. The issue is introduced by Carl Stychin (Where law meets the humanities).
The Canadian Network of Law & Humanities has launched. It brings together scholars "interested in the cultural, imaginative, and embodied aspects of law."
The CNLH tweets at @LawHumanitiesCA.
Here is a link to the Call for Applications for the 2022 Witteveen Memorial Fellowship in Law and Humanities at Tilburg University (Netherlands).
The fellowship aims to enable a junior scholar (PhD or
postdoc level) to develop her or his research in the field of law and
humanities during a visit to Tilburg. The application deadline is October 31, 2021.
From Michiel Bot, Assistant Professor of Law and Humanities, Department of Public Law and Governance, Tilburg Law School, Program Director, Major Law in an International Context, University College Tilburg
LAW AND LOVE:
IN AND BEYOND PANDEMIC TIMES
A VIRTUAL AND IN-PERSON CONFERENCE OF
THE
LAW, LITERATURE AND HUMANITIES ASSOCIATION OF AUSTRALASIA
MONDAY 29 NOVEMBER – THURSDAY 2 DECEMBER 2021
UNIVERSITY OF THE SUNSHINE COAST, SIPPY DOWNS
CALL FOR
PAPERS DUE DATE EXTENDED TO 6 SEPTEMBER 2021
Dear Friends,
We hope this email finds you well
in these difficult times.
We are absolutely delighted with
the response to the call for papers to date – but we don’t want anybody to miss
out on being able to submit a proposal for the conference. As such, we are
extending the call for papers for the conference until the 6th
September 2021. We would also like to confirm that, subject to
Covid-restrictions at the time, the conference will have both online and
in-person attendance options for all the sessions – and there will be
flexibility in changing attendance options if required.
For HDR/postgraduate students, the
Association has a number of bursaries on offer – the closing date for these is
still 31st of August 2021. Applications need to be
submitted by email to kbirrell@unimelb.edu.au. Further information
is available on the Association website here: https://www.lawlithum.org/postgraduate-bursaries/
We have a fantastic line-up of
keynotes and plenaries in the works including:
Registration for the conference
will open shortly, but if you have not yet put in a paper or panel proposal –
please do! Attached is the extended call for papers, and more information can
be found at our conference website: www.usc.edu.au/lawandlove/
We look forward to seeing you
(virtually or in-person) later this year.
Best wishes,
Dr Timothy Peters
On behalf of The Law and Love
Conference Organising Committee
Jordan Belor, Vincent Goding, Dale
Mitchell, Ashley Pearson, Timothy Peters, Justine Poon and Dyann Ross
School of Law and
Society
University of the
Sunshine Coast
Sippy Downs, Queensland, Australia
From the Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice:
The Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice at the University of Texas School of Law is proud to administer the Zipporah B. Wiseman Prize for Scholarship on Law, Literature, and Justice. Awarded to the winners of an annual international and multidisciplinary writing competition, the prize is made possible by donations from the friends, family, and colleagues of the late Zipporah Batshaw Wiseman, in honor of her important work at the intersection of law and literature.
TOPIC: We welcome papers from any discipline that engage both legal and literary methods or texts. For these purposes, literary texts include written and other narrative forms, such as film. Papers should use an interdisciplinary lens to explore issues of justice, broadly understood. The papers may work from any of a variety of perspectives: legal and literary, of course, but also philosophical, historical, sociological, political, economic, or cultural.
PRIZE: The winning paper will receive $1,250 and will be published in the Working Paper Series of the Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice. A second-place prize of $750 might also be awarded, with the paper considered for publication in the Working Paper Series.
ELIGIBILITY: The prize is open to students currently enrolled in graduate or professional programs as well as to those who have graduated from such programs in or after May 2020. Papers must consist of original work, primarily undertaken as a student, that has not been published or undergone professional editing at the time of submission. Authors must have rights to the content and be willing to publish the paper in the Rapoport Center’s Working Paper Series shortly after the winner has been announced. If papers are later published in a journal or other edited collection, they may be replaced in the Working Paper Series with a citation to that publication.
JUDGMENT CRITERIA: An interdisciplinary and international panel of scholars will judge the papers anonymously. Relevant judgment factors include the strength and logic of the thesis, depth of the analysis, originality and importance of intervention, thoroughness and soundness of the research, and quality of writing (clarity and organization).
FORMAT: Papers must be between 8,000 and 12,000 words, including notes and appendices, and written in English. Text should be double-spaced, with 12-point font and 1-inch margins. Citational style should be disciplinarily appropriate. Via email, please submit, in three separate documents, the paper (without any identifying information), abstract (100 to 250 words), and full contact details (including university, degree, and anticipated/actual graduate date). Include “Zipporah Wiseman Prize” in the subject line of the email. All submissions must be submitted in .doc or .docx format.
DEADLINE: June 15, 2021, 11:59 p.m. (CT). Submissions should be sent via email to humanrights@law.utexas.edu.
This short Commentary imagines law and humanities not as a “canon” per se, but as a “field without a canon”; or a canon that resists canonization. Arts-based practices utilized in legal research and teaching expose the law and humanities “canon” to its dual (and somewhat contradictory) nature: ever straining towards a pre-established archive, it must also leap ahead fearlessly to properly defy disciplinary boundaries and move the field beyond siloed thinking, which is one of the preliminary aims of law and humanities scholarship and pedagogy. Arts-based practices consist not of a stable collection of set texts, but instead signify a process of experimentation that is ever in flux and alive to possibility. It is this process of discovering new arts-based practices that ensures law and humanities remains a vibrant, yet ever-changing, field for years to come. To that end, this Commentary surveys a sampling of outsider approaches to law and humanities scholarship and pedagogy, those more concerned with process than product, and which are coming from outside of or beyond the more traditionally conceived canon of law and humanities. These approaches fall into two broad categories: (1) arts-based scholarly legal practices; and (2) arts-based legal pedagogical practices. A uniting feature of both these approaches is that they are being undertaken and explored by Canadian legal scholars at a small law school on Vancouver Island on the West Coast of Canada, namely the University of Victoria Faculty of Law, where there is an impressive number of faculty members using arts-based practices in their research and teaching.Download the article from SSRN at the link.