Grajzl and Murrell on A Macrohistory of Legal Evolution and Coevolution: Property, Procedure, and Contract in Pre-Industrial English Caselaw

Peter Grajzl, Washington and Lee University, Department of Economics, and Peter Murrell, University of Maryland, Department of Economics, have published A Macrohistory of Legal Evolution and Coevolution: Property, Procedure, and Contract in Pre-Industrial English Caselaw. Here is the abstract.

We provide a quantitative macrohistory of the evolution and coevolution of three fundamental elements of English caselaw: property, contract, and procedure. Our dataset is derived from a comprehensive corpus of reports on pre-1765 English court cases. Leveraging existing topic model estimates, we construct annual time series of attention to each of the three legal domains and estimate a structural VAR. Property and procedure are affected for decades by their own shocks. Procedure and property coevolve. In contrast, contract adjusts quickly to its own shocks and does not coevolve with the other two areas of law. We identify the episodes and events outside the legal system that correspond to systemic shocks. Edward Coke was a shock to procedure. The commercial revolution raised attention to contract. The Glorious Revolution, interestingly, did not lead to elevated attention to property issues, but the Civil War and Interregnum did. The evolution of contract, while relatively autonomous from the internal dynamics of the legal system, was, of the three legal domains, least autonomous from society.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Call For Papers: Graphic Justice 2021-2022 Discussions Conference @LexComica

 From Dr. Ashley Pearson, Chair of the Graphic Justice Research Alliance:

We are pleased to announce the Graphic Justice Research Alliance 2021-2022 Discussions conference, ‘Law and Life Beyond the Apocalypse’ will be hosted virtually by the Federal University of Pampa, Brazil on Friday, March 18 2022, led by Dr Amanda Muniz Oliveira.  The theme proposes reflections on law, justice and life in a context where the rule has lost its strength, asking how law and life persists where crisis and devastation have become part of the norm?

 

As the conference is being hosted by an international institution, we have decided to invite responses in both English and Portuguese to ensure local cultural legal scholars are also able to participate. The full Call for Papers is available in PDF format (attached) and via the conference webpage. Abstracts are due February 25, 2022 and can be submitted via the form on the conference webpage.

Malloy on Law and the Invisible Hand: A Theory of Adam Smith's Jurisprudence (Draft Chapter 1) @SUCollegeofLaw

Robin Paul Malloy, Syracure University College of Law, has published Law and The Invisible Hand: A Theory of Adam Smith's Jurisprudence (Draft Chapter 1) (as part of Robin Paul Malloy, Law and the Invisible Hand: A Theory of Adam Smith's Jurisprudence (Cambridge University Press 2021). Here is the abstract.

Fundamentally, law is to society as gravity is to the solar system, it is the invisible force that holds it together and keeps it operating smoothly and productively. Law enhances social cooperation, facilitates trade, and extends the market. In these ways, law functions like Adams Smith’s invisible hand, guiding and facilitating the progress of humankind. This paper outlines the elements of understanding Smith's theory of jurisprudence, and introduces the theory developed in my book.

Download the draft from SSRN at the link.

Rebeiro on The Work Not Done: Frederick Douglass and Black Suffrage @RebeiroBradley

Bradley Rebeiro, Brigham University University Law School, is publishing The Work is Not Done: Frederick Douglass and Black Suffrage in volume 97 of the Notre Dame Law Review. Here is the abstract.

Since antiquity, political theorists have tried to identify the proper balance between ideals and pragmatism in political and public life. Machiavelli and Aristotle both offered prudence as an approach, but with different ends in mind: stability and the good, respectively. Among the many contributions Kurt Lash’s two-volume set on the Reconstruction Amendments provides to present-day discourse, it supplies the careful reader an answer to this timeless question by highlighting the role of Frederick Douglass in public deliberation over the Fifteenth Amendment. In this essay I argue that American abolitionist, social reformer and statesman Frederick Douglass illustrates and enacts the Aristotelian approach. During the Reconstruction period, there was a tension between the ideal (civil rights) and practical reality (opposition to black suffrage). The general public’s lackluster desire for equal political rights, even at a time when there was a strong desire to secure natural and civil rights through constitutional amendment, presented little hope for black—let alone universal—suffrage. Further, blacks’ closest allies were not in lockstep in their political efforts during this critical period. Whether it was William Lloyd Garrison and the American Anti-Slavery Society seeking to declare anti-slavery work in the U.S. “complete,” or women leaders partnering with northern Democrats and championing the slogan “educated suffrage,” black suffrage efforts faced significant obstacles on every side. But Douglass remained undaunted. He realized that the abstract principles of natural right and justice would be insufficient in the face of such opposition. In its place Douglass, with great success, appealed to political expediency and the self-interest of Republicans. Douglass navigated this tension by abandoning, temporarily, his high ideal of universal suffrage and instead advocating for black suffrage at the expense of women’s suffrage. This decision was not an abandonment of principle. Rather, it was a deliberate, prudential choice to pursue, as Aristotle advised, the highest good—universal suffrage. Indeed, Douglass’s efforts to secure black suffrage during Reconstruction demonstrate both the precarious nature of public support for black suffrage and the need for political actors to sacrifice, at times, the theoretically pure for the politically necessary.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Barton on Norm Origin and Development in Cyberspace: Models of Cybernorm Evolution @DuquesneLaw

ICYMI: April M. Barton, Duquesne University School of Law, published Norm Origin and Development in Cyberspace: Models of Cybernorm Evolution at 78 Washington University Law Quarterly 59 (2000). Here is the abstract.

In the absence of legal rules or physical force, what causes someone to behave in a manner contrary to one's private desires? Why, for instance, does one tip a bellhop for carrying luggage to a hotel room? Legal rules do not mandate the tipping of bellhops, and bellhops typically do not threaten physical force. So why does one feel obligated to tip the bellhop and embarrassed when when one does not? Tipping the bellhop is a social norm. Social norm theory seeks to explain such informal constraints on human behavior. While numerous areas of academia employ social norm theory, scholars have yet to apply it directly to the study of the Internet. This Article traces norm origin and development in cyberspace and presents a corresponding theory of "cybernorms"; a theory which explains informal constraints on human behavior in cyberspace.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Ramshaw on The Song and Silence of the Sirens: Attunement to the "Other" in Law and Music @translat_improv

Sara Ramshaw, University of Victoria Faculty of Law, is publishing The Song and Silence of the Sirens: Attunement to the ‘Other’ in Law and Music in Law and the Senses: HEAR. Here is the abstract.

Employing Homer’s story of Odysseus and the Sirens, and Kafka’s and Blanchot’s reinterpretations, this text explores ‘attunement’ as an imperfect listening that tunes its ear to the inaudible and unknowable ‘other’; resisting attempts to fully control or make selective our listening, and thereby inviting justice to be done. Compared to Kafka’s law, understood as a relentless and unceasing ‘droning noise’, the origin of which is unlocatable, justice as attunement is read here through a Derridean deconstruction of law and musical improvisation to suggest that, instead of endeavoring to harness and control the sonic like Odysseus did, it should be permitted to sing – ‘throats rising and falling, … breasts lifting, … lips half-parted’ – in the place between song and silence, where listening is always a listening-with.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Yosifon on Moby-Dick as Corporate Catastrophe: Law, Ethics, and Redemption @DavidYosifon

David G. Yosifon, Santa Clara School of Law, is publishing Moby-Dick as Corporate Catastrophe: Law, Ethics, and Redemption in volume 90 of the University of Cincinnati Law Review (2021). Here is the abstract.

Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick serves here as a vehicle through which to interrogate core features of American corporate law and excavate some of the deeper lessons about the human soul that lurk behind the pasteboard mask of the law’s black letter. The inquiry yields an illuminating vantage on the ethical consequences of corporate capital structure, the law of corporate purpose, the meaning of voluntarism, the ethical stakes of corporate fiduciary obligations, and the role of lawyers in preventing or facilitating corporate catastrophe. No prior familiarity with the novel or corporate law is required.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Call For Papers: Workshop: Women of Justice: Images of Female Legal Professionals in Popular Culture: A Transnational Comparison, August 11-12, 2022

 

                                                       

 

 

Call for Papers

Workshop

Women of Justice

Images of Female Legal Professionals in Popular Culture: A Transnational Comparison

11−12 August 2022 Münster, Germany

The Arab-German Young Academy of Sciences and Humanities (AGYA) in cooperation with the University of Münster is pleased to announce the Call for Papers for the international and interdisciplinary workshop ‘Images of Female Legal Professionals in Popular Culture: A Transnational Comparison’ at the Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies, University of Münster, 11−12 August 2022.

 

Popular culture, be it literature, cinema, or television, has a long history of imagining stories around the judicial system, legal processes, and everyday practices of law. As a result, legal professionals frequently emerge as main characters or important protagonists in different genres of cultural production. For a long time, however, these characters, whether lawyers, judges, or law enforcement officers, were overwhelmingly male. Notwithstanding a few notable exceptions, male legal professionals dominated almost all cultural productions. This changed near the end of the 20th century, when a shift became apparent in the United States, the pioneer of law-related screen productions. Scholarship has argued that increasing representation in both plot and casting have corelated with rising numbers of female legal professionals in real life. Yet, images of women in law-related popular culture have also been described as ‘appalling’ (Shapiro 1994), ‘disappointing’ (Caplow 1999), or ‘cautionary tales’ (Papke 2003).

 

Such negative appraisals criticize stereotypical depictions which frequently come in one of two guises: Either the women lawyers experience an allegedly insurmountable conflict between their professional and personal lives (Grosshans 2006, Banks 2011); or – in marked contrast to their male counterparts – they lack opportunities to emerge as heroes (Corcos 2003). These depictions, in turn, heavily influence how the public imagines, not only the female pop cultural character, but also women in the real-life legal profession.

 

Only recently have legal and media studies scholars identified more nuanced portrayals of female legal professionals (see e.g. Foster et. al. 2009, Banks 2012). Yet, these studies again focus almost exclusively on US-American and, to a lesser degree, British productions. What is still missing from the analysis is how female legal professionals are viewed and portrayed in popular culture outside

the dominant sites of media production. Has the cultural export of US-American legal drama or British crime fiction influenced how law and gender are imagined in other parts of the world? How do the actual participation and representation of women in the legal profession affect their depictions in different genres of popular culture? Has popular culture, both domestic and imported, altered the way society thinks about female lawyers, judges, or law enforcement officers? Our international and interdisciplinary workshop aims to address these questions and, to foster a truly transnational comparison, is particularly interested in contributions that look at popular culture in countries and regions not commonly recognized as creators of globally consumed media productions.

 

Topics, themes, and issues to be explored include, but are not confined to the following:

·       Stereotypical versus realistic images of female legal professionals in popular culture

·       Audiences/readership and their changing perceptions of women in the legal profession

·       Women’s access to the legal profession and their representation in real life versus popular

culture

·       Changing portrayals of women in the legal profession and cross-cultural influences

·       Plots, characters, and sociopolitical critique through female lead characters

 

The workshop is organized by AGYA members Lena-Maria Möller (Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law) and Shahd Alshammari (Gulf University for Science & Technology). Travel costs and accommodation for confirmed speakers will be covered by AGYA. Funding is still subject to approval.

 

Those interested in presenting papers are invited to send a tentative title, an abstract of around 300−500 words, and   a   short   biography  to  Lena-Maria   Möller  (moeller@mpipriv.de)   by 15 February 2022.

 

Notifications of acceptance will be announced by 1 April 2022 and draft papers will be due by 1 July 2022. The workshop language will be English. The organizers aim to publish the papers either as an edited volume or as a special issue of an academic journal.

 

While we are aiming at holding the workshop in person, we are happy to accommodate presentations by authors who will not be able to travel because of restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

About AGYA

The Arab-German Young Academy of Sciences and Humanities (AGYA) is based at the Berlin- Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (BBAW) and at the Academy of Scientific Research and Technology (ASRT) in Egypt. It was established in 2013 as the first bilateral young academy worldwide. AGYA promotes research cooperation among outstanding early-career researchers (3−10 years after PhD) from all disciplines who are affiliated with a research institution in Germany or in any Arab country. The academy supports the innovative projects of its members in various fields of research, science policy, and education. AGYA is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and various Arab cooperation partners.

 

For more information about AGYA please visit www.agya.info

Call For Applications: Postdoctoral Research Association, University of Muenster

 

Public job advertisement

 

45,000 students and 8,000 employees in teaching, research and administration, all working together to shape perspectives for the future – that is the University of Münster (WWU). Embedded in the vibrant atmosphere of Münster with its high standard of living, the University’s diverse research profile and attractive study programmes draw students and researchers throughout Germany and from around the world.

 

The Faculty of Philology at the University of Münster (WWU), Germany, is seeking to fill the full-time position of a

 

Postdoctoral Research Associate Wissenschaftliche/r Mitarbeiter/in (salary level TV-L E 13, 100%)

 

in the externally funded project SFB 1385 “Law and Literature” focusing on

. The position commences on 1 April 2022 and the employment period is for three years.

 

 

 

Your tasks:

 

-      Collaborative research within the Collaborative Research Centre 1385 “Law and Literature”

-      Research on law and literature in relation to early modern British literature

-      Preparation of a project in this field for the second funding phase of the Centre

 

Our expectations:

 

-      A graduate degree in literary studies (i.e. German Diplom and / or master’s degree) and a doctorate in literary studies are required.

-      Relevant interdisciplinary project expertise

-      Good command of written and spoken English

-      German language skills would be advantageous, but are not a requirement

 

The University of Münster is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to increasing the proportion of women academics. Consequently, we actively encourage applications by women. Female candidates with equivalent qualifications and academic achievements will be preferentially considered within the framework of the legal possibilities.

 

The University of Münster is committed to employing more staff with disabilities. Candidates with recognised severe disabilities who have equivalent qualifications are given preference in hiring decisions.

 

Positions can generally be filled as part-time positions if there are no compelling work-related reasons against doing so.

 

Please submit your application by email with the usual documents by                                                                                                                        January 2022 to:

 

Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Prof. Dr. Klaus Stierstorfer Fachbereich 9 - Philologie – Englisches Seminar

Johannisstr. 12 - 20 D-48143 Münster

E-Mail: stierstorfer@wwu.de

Mannheimer on Fugitives From Slavery and the Lost History of the Fourth Amendment @nkuedu @NKUChaseLaw

Michael Mannheimer, Northern Kentucky University College of Law, has published Fugitives from Slavery and the Lost History of the Fourth Amendment. Here is the abstract.

Conventional historical accounts of the Fourth Amendment generally ignore the entire antebellum period. Fourth Amendment scholars of an originalist bent typically look to the three decades from the American Writs of Assistance controversy and the British Wilkesite cases in the 1760s, to the adoption of the Bill of Rights in 1791. Scholarship then jumps to the post-Civil War period and the first two Supreme Court decisions interpreting the Amendment, In re Jackson in 1878 and United States v. Boyd in 1886. Ignoring the entire antebellum period makes some sense given that the Supreme Court did not decide a single Fourth Amendment cases during this lengthy period. But just because the Court did not make any Fourth Amendment law does not mean that the Amendment lay dormant. The Amendment was, in fact, very much alive in the hands of Northern lawyers and state legislators resisting the seizure of people of color in their States as alleged fugitives from slavery, whether under the auspices of the Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1850 or under the so-called common-law “right of recaption.” Lawyers representing alleged fugitives from slavery and state legislators trying to protect free persons of color from being kidnapped into slavery mobilized the Fourth Amendment as a preservation of state control of seizures within each respective State. According to this theory, while the Constitution’s Fugitive Slave Clause required that enslaved persons escaping bondage be “delivered up,” the Fourth Amendment demanded that any claim that a person was a fugitive from slavery would have to be adjudicated by the procedures established by the State where the claim was made. Seizing an allegedly enslaved person without heeding those procedures could subject the slave catcher to civil and criminal liability under state law. In the infamous case of Prigg v. Pennsylvania, the Supreme Court, rather than tackle this Fourth Amendment argument, simply ignored it and broadly rejected States’ attempts to regulate the seizure of allegedly enslaved persons within their borders. Ultimately, this view of the Fourth Amendment as a preservation of state control was forever lost.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Call For Papers, Socio-Legal Studies Association Conference, April 6-8, 2022 @SLSA_UK

 

Call for Papers, Socio-Legal Studies Association Conference, 6-8 April 2022

 

We again plan to run a Graphic Justice panel at the SLSA Annual conference.  The 2022 Conference takes place 6-8 April 2022 at the University of York (UK).

 

The call for papers is now open and details of how to submit a paper are here.

Within the Graphic Justice stream we welcome submissions that explore:

 

*       The relationships between comics and related visual media, and law-culturally, socially, formally, theoretically, jurisprudentially.

*       The use of comics and related visual media in law-in practice, education, theory, research.

*       Analysis of comics as objects of legal regulation in their own right-raising issues of definition, ownership, consumption, value.

*       Studies of individual comics, series and genres.

 

Other areas are also welcome. The call for papers closes on 7 January 2022.

 

 

Seaborne on Rape and Law in Medieval Western Europe @BristolUniLaw

Gwen Seaborne, University of Bristol Law School, is publishing Rape and Law in Medieval Western Europe in Companion to Medieval Crime and Deviance (H. Skoka, ed.,--). Here is the abstract.

A consideration of legal responses to rape, in later medieval western Europe. Content warning: given the subject matter, there is material here which is difficult.

Download the essay from SSRN at the link.

Barrett on Law Clerk John Costelloe's Photographs of the Stone Court Justices, October 1943 @johnqbarrett @StJohnsLaw

John Q. Barrett, St. John's University School of Law, Robert H. Jackson Center, has published Law Clerk John Costelloe's Photographs of the Stone Court Justices, October 1943, at 46 Journal of Supreme Court History 162 (2021). Here is the abstract.

When U.S. Attorney General Robert H. Jackson was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court in Summer 1941, he brought a young Department of Justice lawyer, John F. Costelloe, with him to be his law clerk. John Costelloe was an excellent law clerk. He worked with Justice Jackson at the Court for more than two years, including on Jackson’s now-canonical opinions for the Court in Wickard v. Filburn (1942) and West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943). John Costelloe also was a talented photographer. In October 1943, as Costelloe was completing his clerkship, he got each Supreme Court Justice to pose for his camera. Costelloe later developed and printed close, candid portrait photographs of the Justices: Chief Justice Harlan Fiske Stone and Associate Justices Owen J. Roberts, Hugo L. Black, Stanley Reed, Felix Frankfurter, William O. Douglas, Frank Murphy, Robert H. Jackson, and Wiley Rutledge. John F. Costelloe’s portrait photographs of the Justices are published here for the first time, in an article on Costelloe, Jackson, their close relationship, and the history of the photographs.

The full text is not available for download from SSRN.

Frías on Vicario (DCH)/ Vicar (DCH)

Susana Frías, Academia Nacional de la Historia (Argentina), has published Vicario (DCH) (Vicar (DCH)) as Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory Research Paper Series No. 1. Here is the abstract.

Spanish Abstract: El artículo repasa las principales acepciones de la voz Vicario en el contexto del derecho canónico en el período hispano-americano, basándose en fuentes de la época. La más frecuente es la de delegado del obispo con funciones ordinarias que éste expresamente le da, pero también se analizan otros oficiales que responden a la voz: los foráneos, los coadjutores y los sufragáneos. Existen, sin embargo, otras acepciones a las que se hará referencia a lo largo de este trabajo: el vicario de Cristo, es decir el Papa; el vicario capitular, nombrado por el Cabildo Eclesiástico; el vicario castrense. La acepción del término en relación con las órdenes religiosas es asimismo significativa para esta voz. Se ha procurado, toda vez que fue posible, ilustrar con ejemplos y datos del contexto hispanoamericano las distintas modalidades, con especial referencia al ámbito rioplatense, que es donde se centran los estudios de la autora. Se procura arrojar luz sobre algunos temas que trascienden la mera descripción de la institución. Entre otros, la tensión entre los prelados y las órdenes religiosas generada en América a partir de la organización administrativa de las diócesis o la pugna de criollos y españoles, tanto en el ámbito diocesano como en el seno de las Órdenes. Un aspecto fundamental es la creciente influencia de la Corona española sobre las instituciones eclesiásticas.

 

English Abstract: The article reviews the main meanings of the word Vicar in the context of canon law during the Spanish-American period, based on sources of the time. The most frequent use is that of the bishop's delegate with ordinary functions expressly granted by the bishop; but for other officials this term was applied as well: the foreigners, coadjutors and suffragans. Other meanings to which reference is made throughout this work are the following: the vicar of Christ, that is, the Pope; the capitular vicar, appointed by the Ecclesiastical Chapter; the military vicar. The meaning of the term in relation to religious orders is also significant for this entry. Whenever possible, the different modalities are illustrated by examples and data from the Hispanic-American context, with special reference to the River Plate area, where the author's studies are focusing on. She has attempted to shed light on some issues that go beyond the mere description of that institution. Among others, the tension between the prelates and the religious orders stemming from the administrative organization of the dioceses in America or the struggle between Creoles and Spaniards both at the diocesan level and within the Orders. A fundamental aspect is the growing influence of the Spanish Crown over ecclesiastical institutions.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Reminder: Nominations for Berman Award For Excellence in Scholarship Due December 10, 2021

 Reminder:

The AALS Section on Law & Religion seeks nominations for the 2022 Harold Berman Award for Excellence in Scholarship. This annual award recognizes a paper that “has made an outstanding scholarly contribution to the field of law and religion,” in the words of the prize rules. To be eligible, a paper must have been published between July 15, 2020 and July 15, 2021. The author must be “a faculty member at an AALS Member School with no more than 10 years’ experience as a faculty member.” Fellows are eligible, and self-nominations are accepted. Nominations should include the name of the author, the title of the paper, a statement of eligibility, and a brief rationale for choosing the paper for the award. Nominations should be sent to Elizabeth Katz (elizabeth.katz@wustl.edu), Chair of the Berman Prize Committee, by December 10, 2021. Thanks to the members of the Prize Committee: Elizabeth Katz (Washington University-St. Louis), Chair and Marie Failinger (Mitchell Hamline), Rick Garnett (Notre Dame), Jim Oleske (Lewis & Clark), and Audra Savage (Emory).

 

Canadian Network of Law & Humanities Launches; Check Out Its Website @LawHumanitiesCA

 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. 

Call For Papers, Law and Literature in Europe, October 17-19, 2022

 Call For Papers, Law and Literature in Europe, Muenster, October 17-19, 2022

The process of Europeanisation that has happened in political, social, cultural and especially legal form over the last decades, may duly be considered one of the most important and powerful changes within Europe, but also beyond. The process of instituting and developing a European internal market as a catalyst did not only lead to the transition of important sovereign rights from individual states to the European union, but also contributed to the latter’s political regulation and standing. Such processes of European integration are simultaneously embedded in and countered by tendencies towards legal, political and cultural regionalisation and re- nationalisation, thereby enabling not only a Europewide resurgence of right-wing national parties and factions, but also leading to the erosion of constitutional premises in terms of the separation of powers and the freedom of the press. Further elements, such as the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s, the global financial crisis of 2008 or the refugee crisis of 2015, have contributed significantly to the conflictual positioning between European integration and disintegration. Brexit and climate change, as well as worldwide digitalisation, also signal towards the need of the integration of Europe and its political borders.

National literatures both on the Continent and in Britain have reflected these disintegrating crises critically, but they have also focused on periods of European integration in less critical times (eg. Menasse, McEwan, Houellebecq). Consequently, there are obvious processes of how law and literature connect each other as well as insights into the reasons why the legalisation processes in Europe have not been accompanied by a similar cultural and literary integration on a European level – although the institutionalisation and legal guarantee of translations supports the phenomenon of European bestsellers.

At the same time, such processes of Europeanisation and European integration need to be considered in their historical dimension, as scholars across Europe during the Enlightenment, for instance, also saw themselves as one community and acted as such. Questions of natural law as well as the importance of literature for the developing Enlightenment necessarily focused specifically on a European context, which can be seen in Lessing’s position on tolerance as represented in Nathan, for instance, since Lessing conceived of such considerations in an imagined dialogue with theorists such as Locke and Voltaire. Even tendencies towards nationalisation in the 19th and 20th centuries reflect critically on the political and economic internationalisation of law and literature.

The conference will focus on culturally connected and comparable processes of Europeanisation in law and literature as well as their correlation since the early modern period.

The organisers therefore invite papers on topics such as

-          European integration; European identity and its Other

-          Processes of regionalisation and re-nationalisation

-          Narratives of Europe; European Narratives

-          Europe imagined

-          Legal culture in Europe

-          Digital agency

-          Migration and citizenship

-          Cultures of translation

-          Literature’s legal autonomy and its limits

-          European bestsellers and marketing

For updates on the Conference, please refer to the Centre's website: www.uni-muenster.de/SFB1385/en/index.html

 

Please send a short abstract (300 words) to juliusnoack@wwu.de by May 31st, 2022.