Macey on the Central Role of Political Myth in Corporate Law @JonathanMacey @YaleLawSch

Jonathan R. Macey, Yale Law School, has published The Central Role of Political Myth in Corporate Law. Here is the abstract.

This Article shows that a variety of fundamental rules of corporate law are based on a set of myths. The Article explains that these myths play an important role in attracting public acceptance and support for what otherwise would be unpopular and controversial regulations. Thus, one can view the role played by myth in corporate law in a particular context as having either positive or negative social effects depending on one’s opinion of the social value of the underlying legal rule that being buttressed and affirmed by the myth. Four political and sociological myths that continue to play important roles in law are examined. These are: (1) the myth that corporations are owned by their shareholders and represent ownership interests in businesses rather than mere financial claims on the cash flows of those businesses, coupled with certain political (voting) rights that protect those claims; (2) the “shareholder value myth,” that corporate officers and directors are legally required to maximize firm value; (3) that subsidiary companies are independent from and not subject to the control of their parent companies and must remain so in order for the parent company to avoid liability for the contract and tort debts of the subsidiary under various alter ego and piercing the corporate veil theories of corporate law; and (4) the legal regulation of insider trading is justified because of the necessity of creating a “level playing field” among participants in financial markets. Reasonable people can disagree about whether the role played by these myths is normatively positive or negative in each of these contexts.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Call For Papers, Political Theology Theology Network Conference, NYC, October 17-19, 2019

Political Theology Network Conference

Columbia University & Union Theological Seminary

New York City

October 17-19, 2019

***Call for Papers Deadline Approaching: June 1
***Funding Available
***Keynote Speakers: Michelle Alexander, Gil Anidjar, Silvia Federici, Lap Yan Kung, Intisar Rabb, Najeeba Syeed

We invite proposals of 200-300 words for projects exploring political theology, broadly understood as an interdisciplinary conversation about intersections of religious and political ideas and practices. Under the sign of “political theology” political theorists have reflected on analogies between political and theological sovereignty, theologians have reflected on the role of memory and hope in political engagement, and cultural theorists have performed ideology critique. We are looking for projects that may draw on but also challenge and transform such classic conversations about political theology. We embrace the vibrant scholarly and activist work being done under the sign of political theology around the world, particularly in contexts of domination. African, Arab, Asian, and Latinx political theological traditions interrogate discourses around “sacred” and “profane” bodies. Indigenous activists organize to dismantle the anthropocentricism and “civilizing mission” of settler states. Scholars of secularism explore the relationship between caste, political culture, and everyday life in India. Black Muslim intellectuals theorize the power of popular protest and the religious nature of #BlackLivesMatter. Anti-colonial theologians from across the globe discuss abolition, anarchy, statelessness, and “higher laws.” Still others invite us to imagine “the end of the world.” We aim to bring together scholars, activists, and artists working with ethnographic, theoretical, theological, legal, historical, literary, and cultural studies methods motivated by a concern for justice. We are particularly interested in proposals that speak to the following themes:

• economies
• ecologies
• legalities
• embodiments
• gender and sexualities
• racializations
• citizenship, migration, place and displacement
• colonialisms (including settler colonialism and relations between settlers and Indigenous peoples)
• critical disability studies
• technologies and artificial intelligence
• fictions and poetics
• public scholarship and creative pedagogies
• religious nationalisms and religious pluralities

Proposals that address these themes from diverse global and religious perspectives are especially welcome. We invite five different presentation formats:

1. Paper presentation or pre-arranged papers panel (we anticipate allotting 90 minutes for each panel)
2. Poster
3. Dialogue or roundtable around a single theme (roundtables that include a combination of academics,
   activists, and representatives of the community are strongly encouraged)
4. Activist workshop (e.g. teach-in, facilitated conversation, skills-building session, etc.)
5. Performative piece (e.g. poem, spoken word, music, drama, dance, film, digital media, creative fiction readings, etc.) (Please submit either a general description of the piece or the performative work itself. Please
   also indicate any preferences for room and A/V setup.

This conference, hosted by Union Theological Seminary and Columbia University, is also funded by grants from the Henry Luce Foundation and Emory University’s Center for the Study of Law and Religion. It hosts a professional network connecting scholars of political theology across varying fields and traditions, and we are eager for proposals to advance conversations about what political theology could look like both in and outside the academy.
Submit proposals to Winfield Goodwin, PTN Conference Coordinator, at ptn19.proposals@gmail.com

Proposals Due June 1, 2019.

A limited amount of funding will be available to offset conference travel costs. Note: this funding is not available to tenured or tenure-track faculty (or equivalent). If you would like to be considered for funding, please indicate that with your submission.

Manners on Congress and the Problem of Legislative Discretion, 1790-1870 (Dissertation)

Jane Manners, New York Historical Society, has published Congress and the Problem of Legislative Discretion, 1790-1870 (Dissertation, Princeton University, 2018). Here is the abstract.

Histories of the nineteenth-century United States often describe a stark divide between law and politics, with law as the agent of the propertied few and politics as the weapon of the masses. As representatives of America’s growing electorate fought to reapportion wealth, these accounts go, lawyers and judges waged a counteroffensive through the courts, using the rule of law to strike down statutes and stave off redistributive change. This dissertation challenges that narrative by examining the legislative logic of Congress during the first century of its existence: a logic, it argues, that increasingly relied on notions that we typically associate with private law, such as precedent, principle, and doctrines of vested rights. Members of Congress turned to these concepts not for the reasons that modern-day political scientists attribute to legislative actors, such as electoral considerations and political pressure (or at least, not only for such reasons), but rather out of a deeply-rooted anxiety about the exercise of their own power and an uncertainty as to what, in America’s decades-old experiment in representative democracy made legislation legitimate. Focusing on two case studies – one examining Congress’s response to the Great New York Fire of 1835 and the other investigating the legislative theory of the radical Republican senator Charles Sumner – this dissertation uses techniques and sources typically identified with the law side of the law/politics divide to make a novel claim: that Congress’s increasing reliance on the ideas and practices of ‘private’ law led its members gradually to limit their own discretion, constricting their ability to legislate for the public good in the process.

Download the dissertation from SSRN at the link.

Acevedo on Witch-Hunts and Crime Panics in America

John Felipe Acevedo, University of Alabama School of Law, has published Witch-Hunts and Crime Panics in America. Here is the abstract.

The term witch-hunt has been tossed around by media commentators, policy experts, and even presidents for years — Nixon, Clinton, and Trump each in turn. Accusations of a witch-hunt are used to signal perceived bias, procedural unfairness, and paranoia. This Article argues that drawing simplistic connections between witchcraft trials and unfairness in the criminal justice system severely hampers our understanding of both historical and contemporary events. It obscures the fact that the term witch-hunt is popularly used to describe two very different types of prosecutions that reflect distinct social and legal problems and demand distinct solutions. On the one hand, witch-hunts target individuals based on their beliefs and are exemplified by the two Red Scares of the early and mid-twentieth century and the persecution of the Quakers in seventeenth century Massachusetts Bay. These are fundamentally distinct from crime panics, which target activity that was already classified as criminal but do so in a way that reveals deep procedural deficiencies in the criminal justice system. Crime panics are exemplified by the Salem witchcraft trials and the “Satanic Panic” of the 1980s and 1990s. In contrast, the ongoing special investigation by Robert Mueller is neither a witch-hunt nor a crime panic. By bringing ongoing criminal law issues into conversation with legal history scholarship on early American witch-hunts, this article clarifies our understanding of the relationship between politics and large-scale criminal investigations, and highlights areas for future reform.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Bezemek on The Alien and the State

Christopher Bezemek, University of Graz, Faculty of Law, Institute of Law and Political Science, is publishihng Stranger in a Strange Land: The Alien and the State in the Indonesian Journal of International & Comparative Law (2018). Here is the abstract.

The relationship of the stranger and the political community has traditionally been at the very core of various theoretical, historical and mythical accounts; in defining membership, in answering who is to be included, accepted and (thus) protected, in safeguarding a group’s position and its coherence. The essay argues that many of these accounts still prove to be of great value in a legal and political perspective: None of the questions raised today when it comes to the phenomenon of migration and inclusion are particulary new; rather they have been addressed frequently in sociology and political philosophy over the last centuries. We would be well-advised to rely on a broader perspective, on the teachings of history, and the insights of political philosophy when facing the intellectual and political challenges of our time.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Wilson on the Legal Foundations of White Supremacy @Erika_K_Wilson

Erika K. Wilson, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, College of Law, has published The Legal Foundations of White Supremacy, 11 DePaul Journal for Social Justice 1 (2018). From the introduction:

The election of former President Barack Obama, the country’s first African-American president, temporarily changed the discourse around race in America. Despite America’s sordid racial history, President Obama’s election was hailed as evidence that race was no longer a salient factor in meting out opportunities—that the country was finally “post-racial.” Indeed, some even went so far as to suggest that his election signified “the gradual erosion of ‘whiteness’ as the touchstone of what it means to be American.” Recent events have upended this “post-racial” narrative. In the wake of the racially charged election of Donald J. Trump and the violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, race generally and white supremacy specifically are again taking center stage. For many, the reemergence of the kind of overt manifestations of white supremacy that were unveiled in Charlottesville was particularly jarring. It forced many people to grapple with the reality that white supremacy, a phenomenon that many believed had been relegated to a historical footnote, still exists and is stronger than ever. Yet those such as myself who examine race critically have long been aware that the fissures caused by race generally and white supremacy specifically, never went anywhere, notwithstanding the election of the country’s first self-identified African-American president. Race generally and white supremacy specifically are embedded into the framework of most American social institutions. As a result, now more than ever, it is imperative that we critically examine all forms and manifestations of white supremacy. This paper focuses on a very important part of white supremacy — the legal foundations of white supremacy. The central thesis of this paper is that American law has historically played a vital role in constructing white supremacy. While America has eliminated overt race-conscious laws that favor whites, the law continues to play a critical role in maintaining white supremacy today. Unless and until we commit to understanding the history of the law in constructing white supremacy and the ways in which modern iterations of law continue to perpetuate white supremacy, white supremacy will remain an enduring feature of American society.

Download the article via the link given.

The Watergate Grand Jury Report Is Now Available

The Watergate Grand Jury report is now available. It has been under seal for nearly 45 years. Here's a link to the material.

A short bibliography about the Watergate scandal.


Books

John Dean, Blind Ambition: The White House Years (1976).

Elizabeth Drew, Washington Journal: Reporting Watergate and Richard Nixon's Downfall (2015).

Stanley Kutler, The Wars of Watergate: The Last Crisis of Richard Nixon (1990).

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, All the President's Men  (1974). The first book about the Watergate break-in by the reporters who broke the story about the cover-up. Made into a 1976 film that starred Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman.

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, The Secret Man: The Story of Watergate's Deep Throat (2005).


Films and Television

Dick Cavett's Watergate (2014).

Frost/Nixon: The Original Watergate Interviews (1977).

Our Nixon (2013).

Websites

Watergate at 40 (Washington Post)

Watergate.info

Butler and Crawley on Forms of Authority Beyond the Neoliberal State @GriffLawSchool @kscrawling @LawAndCritique

Chris Butler and Karen Crawley, both of Griffith University Law School, have published Forms of Authority Beyond the Neoliberal State: Sovereignty, Politics, and Aeathetics, in Law and Critique (2018). Here is the abstract.

Critical legal scholarship has recently turned to consider the form, mode and role of law in neoliberal governance. A central theme guiding much of this literature is the importance of understanding neoliberalism as not only a political or economic phenomenon, but also an inherently juridical one. This article builds on these con-ceptualisations of neoliberalism in turning to explore the wider historical, cultural and sociological contexts which inform the production of neoliberal authority. The papers in this collection were first presented at the symposium ‘Forms of authority beyond the neoliberal state’, held at the Griffith Law School in December 2017. They consider the role of the corporation, the site of the university, the politics of debt, the genre of prestige television, and the archic sources of state violence, in order to imagine forms of authority which lie beyond neoliberalism as an ideology and a set of practices, and the ensemble of institutions which constitute the neo-liberal state. The contributions draw on social theory, philosophy, cultural studies, legal geography and political theology in exploring new possibilities for cultivating judgement through and beyond the sovereign, political and aesthetic terrains of neo-liberal governance.

Orbach and Huang on Con Men and Their Enablers

Barak Orbach, University of Arizona, and Lindsey Huang, Perkins Coie, LLP, are publishing Con Men and Their Enablers: The Anatomy of Confidence Games in Social Research: An International Quarterly (forthcoming). Here is the abstract.

President Trump’s philosophy for life, business, and politics prescribes the use of “leverage,” “truthful hyperbole,” and “play[ing] to people’s fantasies” to advance zero-sum deals. Many people believe that this philosophy made Trump a successful businessman and the greatest dealmaker in history. Many others believe that, by following this philosophy, Mr. Trump has proven that, with the aid of fixers and other enablers, a con man might escape the rule of law for decades, successfully use confidence schemes in a presidential campaign, and continue using confidence schemes in the Oval Office. We examine why people often disagree about what profit-seeking actions constitute unethical confidence games and about how the legal system should address cons. Con schemes have characteristics of both trade and fraud. Like trade, cons are voluntary exchanges, and, like fraud, cons are voluntary exchanges induced by misleading representations. Fundamentally, cons further voluntary exchanges that are not mutually beneficial. They benefit con men at the expense of their victims. We study the anatomy of confidence games and legal strategies that may reduce the social costs of cons. We argue that the present understanding of cons, as reflected through our legal system, political debates, and the literature, is impaired and that the prevalence of cons warrants greater attention of lawmakers, courts, and scholars.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Manderson on From Aestheticizing Politics To Politicizing Art @ANU_Law

Desmond Manderson, ANU College of Law; ANU College of Arts and Social Science; McGill University Faculty of Law, is publishing Here and Now: From Aestheticizing Politics to Politicizing Art in Sensing the Nation's Law: Historical Inquiries into the Aesthetics of Democratic Legitimacy (Mark Antaki, Stefan Huygenbaert, Angela Condello and Sarah Marusek, eds., Springer, 2018) (forthcoming). Here is the abstract.

The nation is not a national construction. It is mediated through representations and particularly through representations with a sensory component. Images therefore are primary means through which a collection identity is established. They serve to constitute myths of belonging; to distinguish friend from enemy, as Schmitt put it. They tell stories; they create models and examples that frame our social existence. But they also generate the icons and symbols whose repetition and familiarity - flags, monuments, even colour combinations - etch habits of feeling and mental associations deep into our psyche.

Download the essay from SSRN at the link. 

Political Theology and the Contemporary Moment: Beyond the Christian and the Secular: Humboldt University of Berlin Workshop @HumboldtUni

Political Theology and the Contemporary Moment: Beyond the Christian and the Secular

A Two-Day Workshop at the Humboldt University of Berlin

July 5-6, 2018

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Theologische Fakultät
Burgstr. 26, 10178 Berlin

Room 206 (2nd floor)

The workshop is free and open to all. No registration is required.

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/events/613846728983754/

WORKSHOP SCHEDULE

July 5th

11.00-11.10 Welcome 

Kirill Chepurin (HU Berlin/HSE Moscow) and Alex Dubilet (Vanderbilt) 

11.10-12.00 A Political Theology of Disenchantment 

Marika Rose (Winchester) 

12.00-12.50 An Agenda for Total Disorder: Mysticism and Gnosis in Fanon 

Anthony Paul Smith (LaSalle) 

12.50-14.00 Lunch 

14.00-14.50 Disciplining the Moment 

Linn Tonstad (Yale) 

14.50-15.40 Doing Nothing: Individuation, Subjection, and the Political Theology of Interpellation

Alex Dubilet (Vanderbilt) 

15.40-16.10 Coffee 

16.10-17.00 Secularism and Liberalism: A Conjoined Critique 

Thomas Lynch (Chichester) 

17.00-17.50 Conceptualizing Umma Today (The Ruin of Islamic Community) 

Basit Iqbal (UC Berkeley) 

17.50-18.10 Coffee 

18.10-19.00 You’re On God’s Time Now: On the Accumulative Disjunction of Intensive and Extensive Duration 

Sean Capener (Toronto) 

July 6th

11.10-12.00 Is Romanticism Secular?: Uses of Justification 

Joseph Albernaz (Columbia) 

12.00-12.50 Laying Claim to History: Theology, Literature, and the Reproduction of Racial Belonging

Amaryah Armstrong (Vanderbilt) 

12.50-14.00 Lunch 

14.00-14.50 Is Secularism Christianity? Blumenberg to Anidjar 

Christiane Frey (ICI Berlin) 

14.50-15.40 Modernity and Bliss 

Kirill Chepurin (HU Berlin/HSE Moscow) 

15.40-16.10 Coffee 

16.10-17.00 Zones of Equivocity 

Daniel C. Barber (Pace) 

17.00-17.50 A Matter of Conversion: Derrida and Žižek on Kabbalistic Materialism 

Agata Bielik-Robson (Nottingham) 

17.50-18.10 Coffee 

18.10-19.00 Disappointing Vision: Anarchism, Prophecy and the Archeon 

James Martel (San Francisco State)

Organized by Kirill Chepurin and Alex Dubilet, with the support of Prof. Dr. Rolf Schieder.
Funded by HU Berlin's KOSMOS Program.

Hunt on Norms, Narratives, and Politics @radfordu

Luke William Hunt, Radford University, has published Norms, Narratives, and Politics at 101 Soundings 173 (2018). Here is the abstract.

This essay considers how legal and philosophical ideals relate to contemporary politics. While political commentary is often concerned with descriptive analysis of public affairs, this essay pursues normative analysis of emerging trends in public life. The essay’s underlying theme is that “liberal” states — such as the United States — from time to time become illiberal by departing from the basic legal and philosophical norms of that tradition. Although it is difficult to draw definitive conclusions while in the moment, the tentative conclusion is that we are in the midst of a departure from liberal norms. The essay takes a discursive approach — drawing upon Appalachian culture, popular culture, and personal narrative — to highlight the altered trajectory from those norms.

Download the article from SSRN at the link. 

Meyer on Sisyphus and the Clockmaker: Two Views of the Rule of Law in Keally McBride's "Mr. Mothercountry: The Man Who Made the Rule of Law

Linda Ross Meyer, Quinnipiac University School of Law, has published Sisyphus and the Clockmaker: Two Views of the Rule of Law in Keally McBride's 'Mr. Mothercountry: The Man Who Made the Rule of Law'. Here is the abstract.

This essay is an engagement with Keally McBride's excellent book, "Mr. Mothercountry: The Man Who Made the Rule of Law," and argues that the rule of law is not a law of rules, but a culture of self-restraint and humility.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Pier Giuseppe Monateri, Political Sublime and the World Order (Hart Publishing, 2018) @hartpublishing

New from Hart Publishing:

Pier Giuseppe Monateri, Professor of Law, University of Torino, Dominus Mondi: Political Sublime and the World Order (2018).

Here from the publisher's website is a description of the book's contents.

This monograph makes a seminal contribution to existing literature on the importance of Roman law in the development of political thought in Europe. In particular it examines the expression 'dominus mundi', following it through the texts of the medieval jurists – the Glossators and Post-Glossators – up to the political thought of Hobbes. Understanding the concept of dominus mundi sheds light on how medieval jurists understood ownership of individual things; it is more complex than it might seem; and this book investigates these complexities. The book also offers important new insights into Thomas Hobbes, especially with regard to the end of dominus mundi and the replacement by Leviathan. Finally, the book has important relevance for contemporary political theory. With fading of political diversity Monateri argues “that the actual setting of globalisation represents the reappearance of the Ghost of the Dominus Mundi, a political refoulé – repressed – a reappearance of its sublime nature, and a struggle to restore its universal legitimacy, and take its place.” In making this argument, the book adds an important original vision to current debates in legal and political philosophy.

 

ICYMI: Being Social: Ontology, Law, Politics (From Counterpress Publishing) @2counterpress

ICYMI:

Being Social: Ontology, Law, Politics (Daniel Matthews and Tara Mulqueen, eds., Counterpress Publishing, 2015). Here is a description of the book's contents, from the publisher's website.

Being Social brings together leading and emerging scholars on the question of sociality in poststructuralist thought. The essays collected in this volume examine a sense of the social which resists final determination and closure, embracing an anxiety and undecidability of sociality, rather than effacing it. Through issues including queer politics, migration, and Guantanamo, recent events such as the occupation of Gezi Park in Istanbul, and theoretical explorations of themes such as writing, law, and democracy, contributors assess how a reconfigured sociality affects thinking and practice in the legal and political realms. With a particular emphasis on Jean-Luc Nancy, whose work brings questions of community to the fore, these essays explore how the consistent ‘unworking’ of sociality informs the tenor and form of political debate and engagement.

Witte on The Universal Rule of Natural Law and Written Constitutions in the Thought of Johannes Althusius @EmoryLaw

John Witte, Jr., Emory University School of Law, has published The Universal Rule of Natural Law and Written Constitutions in the Thought of Johannes Althusius, at Morality and Responsibility of Rulers: Chinese and European Early Modern Origins of a Rule of Law for World Order 167 (Janne Nijman and Tony Carty, eds., Oxford University Press, 2017).

Calvinist jurist Johannes Althusius (1557-1638) developed what he called a “universal theory” of law and politics for war-torn Europe. He called for written constitutions that separated the executive, legislative, and judicial powers of cities, provinces, nations, and empires alike and that guaranteed the natural rights and liberties of all subjects. To be valid, he argued, these constitutions had to respect the universal natural law set out in Christian and classical, biblical and rational teachings of law, authority, and rights. To be effective, these constitutions had to recognize the symbiotic nature of human beings who are born with a dependence on God and neighbor, family and community, and who are by nature inclined to form covenantal associations to maintain liberty and community. Althusius left comprehensive Christian theory of rule of law and political that anticipated many of the arguments of later Enlightenment theorists of social and government contracts.

Download the essay from SSRN at the link.

Roth-Isigkeit on Machiavelli's International Legal Thought @goetheuni

David Roth-Isigkeit, Goethe University Frankfurt, Cluster of Excellence Normative Orders, is publishing Niccoló Machiavelli's International Legal Thought – Culture, Contingency and Construction in System, Order, and International Law: The Early History of International Legal Thought (Stefan Kadelbach, Thomas Kleinlein, and David Roth-Isigkeit, eds., Oxford University Press, 2017). Here is the abstract.

This essay suggests a progressive reading of Machiavelli, relying on the unity of his national and international thought. It argues that his focus on the unification of political communities through the medium of law allows for a sophisticated theoretical understanding of international law. The essay starts with a discussion of the relationship of his biographical events and his social epistemology. It proceeds with the relationship of Machiavelli's concept of law as a governance tool to the area of morality and normativity. Ultimately, the focus lies on his understanding of imperialism and international relations in order to shape a novel understanding of Machiavelli that depicts him as a reasonable historical starting point for a modern, post-critical understanding of international law.

Download the essay from SSRN at the link.

Annual Meeting of the Alabama Political Science Association CFP

From the mailbox:

Annual Meeting of the Alabama Political Science Association

Call for Papers, Panels, and Moderators March 16-17, 2018 – University of South Alabama Campus

The Alabama Political Science Association (ALaPSA) is looking for professors, graduate, and undergraduate students in all areas of political science and related fields to contribute to our annual statewide conference in beautiful Mobile in March 2018. Participants representing other disciplines related to politics, and participants from outside Alabama, are welcome!

HOW YOU CAN PARTICIPATE:

1. Propose a research paper for delivery at an AlaPSA panel (professors and graduate students): Submit a brief proposal at the hyperlink listed below. Papers on all political topics are welcome, and, if accepted, will be placed on topic-appropriate panels. Please indicate if you are a graduate student.

2. Propose a paper for delivery at an undergraduate student panel: Submit a brief proposal at the hyperlink listed below. Papers will be placed on special undergraduates-only panels with a faculty or graduate student moderator. Papers involving original research are preferred, but insightful, well-written and substantial literature reviews or essays will be considered.

3. Propose “pre-fabricated” complete faculty, graduate, or undergraduate, student panels: If you and some colleagues would like to pre-arrange an entire panel (i.e. you supply the topic, moderator, and research presenters), we’ll supply the room and an audience. Submit your general panel theme and brief proposals or summaries of the component papers (as well as complete contact information for all proposed participants) at the hyperlink listed below.

4. Propose “roundtables” offering academic expertise on scholarly and practical problems and issues (faculty): We welcome the opportunity for groups of more senior experts on particular topics to share their collective wisdom in a less structured, more speculative, and more wide-ranging way. If you would like to suggest an idea for such a scholarly roundtable, and/or offer to participate in one, please submit your suggestions at the hyperlink listed below. 5. Offering service as a panel moderator and/or roundtable participant (faculty and graduate students): As with all academic conferences, we need people to facilitate the panels and offer comments and suggestions on the papers presented. If you would enjoy doing this, submit a request at the hyperlink listed below.

HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR PROPOSAL

The following link will take you to the conference registration website:

https://conferencebit.com/alabama-political-science-association-conference-2018

If this is your first time to the website, you will need to register. Once you have registered, you will be able to submit your proposal. Please add the appropriate tags to your proposal. Tags include the topic area as well as any special information about the proposal, i.e., whether it is a graduate or undergraduate panel, or whether you are proposing a roundtable or to be a moderator.

There will be a place to upload your paper. You will not need to upload the paper until closer to the actual time of the conference. Once a proposal is submitted, you will receive notification of whether your proposal was accepted.

As we approach the submission deadline, accepted proposals will be organized into panels and you will receive notification of your panel assignment. Those submitting paper proposals will receive information on how to pay for the conference registration in their acceptance emails. Additional information on paying for conference registration will be sent to others in a later email.

If you have any questions please contact: Jaclyn Bunch, ALaPSA Program Chair Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice University of South Alabama Mobile, AL 36688

E-mail: jbunch@southalabama.edu Tel: (251) 460-7852 Fax: (251) 460-6567 APPLICATION DEADLINE: January 5, 2018

David Armitage's New Book, Civil Wars: A History in Ideas @DavidRArmitage @maksdelmar

ICYMI: David Armitage, Department of History, Harvard University, has published Civil Wars: A History in Ideas (Yale University Press, 2017). Here from the publisher's website is a description of the book's contents.

We think we know civil war when we see it. Yet ideas of what it is, and isn't, have a long and contested history. Defining the term is acutely political, for ideas about what makes a war "civil" often depend on whether one is ruler or rebel, victor or vanquished, sufferer or outsider; it can also shape a conflict’s outcome, determining whether external powers are involved or stand aside. From the American Revolution to the Iraq war, pivotal decisions have hung on such shifts of perspective. The West’s age of civil war may be over, but elsewhere it has exploded – from the Balkans to Rwanda, Burundi, Somalia, Sri Lanka and, most recently, Syria. And the language of civil war has burgeoned as democratic politics has become more violently fought. This book's unique perspective on the roots, dynamics and shaping force of civil war will be essential to our ongoing struggles with this seemingly interminable problem.

 

Call For Papers: Political Theology Network Inaugural Conference, February 15-17, 2018

From the mailbox:

Call For Papers

Political Theology Network Inaugural Conference:

February 15-17, 2018 Emory University Conference Center, Atlanta

Deadline for submission of proposals: December 18, 2017

Notification of acceptance: December 22, 2017

Submissions/Questions: vincent.lloyd@villanova.edu

Keynotes: Hussein Ali Agrama (Anthropology, University of Chicago); Shawn Copeland (Theology, Boston College); Faisal Devji (History, Oxford, UK); Cathleen Kaveny (Law and Theology, Boston College); Elettra Stimilli (Philosophy, Sapienza, Rome)

Conveners: Vincent Lloyd (Villanova) & Ted Smith (Emory)

We invite proposals of 200-300 words for papers exploring political theology, broadly understood as an interdisciplinary conversation about intersections of religious and political ideas and practices. Under the sign of “political theology” political theorists have reflected on analogies between political and theological sovereignty, Christian theologians have reflected on the role of memory and hope in political engagement, and cultural theorists have performed ideology critique. We are looking for papers that may draw on but also challenge and transform such classic conversations about political theology. In doing so, we aim to bring together scholars working with ethnographic, theoretical, theological, historical, literary, and cultural studies methods motivated by a concern for justice. We are particularly interested in proposals that speak to the following themes: economies, ecologies, legalities, embodiments, and racializations. Proposals engaging non-Christian and/or non-Western traditions are encouraged. This conference will inaugurate a professional network connecting scholars of political theology across varying fields and traditions, and we are eager for proposals to advance conversations about what political theology in the academy could look like.

Funding is available to cover travel and registration costs of a limited number of contingent faculty or graduate student participants with exceptional proposals. Please indicate if you would like to be considered for this funding opportunity.

Conference registration is not required to submit proposals. Nor is a proposal required to register.

To register, visit bit.do/ptn-register