Workshop for Junior Scholars, University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, June 8-9, 2026

 Workshop for Junior Scholars

Georgetown University Law Center, Stanford Law School, UCLA School of Law, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Southern California Center for Law, History, and Culture invite submissions for the 24th meeting of the Law and Humanities Workshop for Junior Scholars, to be held at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School on June 8-9, 2026. For more information please see the link to the CFP below. 2026 LHW Jr Scholars CFP.pdf

New From Hart Publishing: Picart on Countering Jihadi Cool: Narrative, Law, and Philosophy Against Global Jihad (2025)

New from Caroline Joan "Kay" S. Picart, Countering Jihadi Cool: Narrative, Law, and Philosophy Against Global Jihad (Hart Publishing, 2025).

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

Using an aesthetic culture and techniques termed as jihadi cool, terrorist groups have been able to recruit members from around the world, so how do we begin to respond? This book analyzes the rhetorical and ethical dynamics of a culture of jihadi cool/chic, and why these rhetorical and aesthetic techniques have been such a powerful recruitment force for particular transnational terrorist groups. The author uses an evidence-based approach, with frameworks derived from law, politics, philosophy, rhetoric, feminist theory, and communication studies, to examine various attempts to construct counter-narratives to the jihadi cool master narrative. The book closes with an examination of how to begin to respond critically and effectively to the lure of jihadi cool.

Cultures of Legality in Weimar Germany: Next Series of Lectures at the University of Lucerne

From Dr. Stephen Howe, Senior Research and Lecturer, Associate Director of the Institute for Interdisciplinary Legal Studies, Iucernaiuris, University of Lucerne

The next series of lectures in Cultures of Legality in Weimar Germany

Wednesday 12 November, 10.00-11.00

Visualising ‘Through Science to Justice’? Sexological Photographs during the Weimar Republic

Xiaojue Michelle Zhu (The Courtauld Institute of Art, London)

 

Tuesday 25 November, 16.00-17.00

Visualizing the Legal Subject in Weimar Film

Hannes Charen (Pratt Institute, Brooklyn)

 

Wednesday 10 December, 09.00-10.00

The Paragraph Film: Genre, Emotions and the Struggle for Law

Steven Howe (University of Lucerne)

 

All sessions are free and open to all, and we warmly invite you to join us. Further details, including registration info, available via the links.

 

Please note that listed start times are CET. Time zone converter here.

Call For Papers: Socio-Legal Studies Association 2026 Annual Conference, Dance/Law Current Topic

From Dr. Sean Mulcahy, Research Officer, Gender, Law and Drugs Program, LaTrobe University:

The call for papers for the Socio-Legal Studies Assocation's 2026 Annual Conference is open. The conference will be held at the University of Sussex.

We would be delighted if you would consider submitting an abstract to the Dance/Law current topic co-convened by myself and Dr Maria Frederica Moscati (University of Sussex).

You can find out more information here. Just scroll down to 'Dance/Law'.

The deadline for submissions is 30 October 2025. 

If you have any questions or would like any further information, please do reach out. 

 

ICYMI: Barbas on The Story of Beauharnais v. Illinois

ICYMI: Samantha Barbas, University of Iowa Collee of Law, has published The Story Of Beauharnais v. Illinois at 2 Journal of Free Speech Law 420 (2023). Here is the abstract.

In 1952, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its landmark First Amendment decision in Beauharnais v. Illinois, upholding an Illinois hate speech law. Beauharnais, involving a white supremacist “hate group” leader in Chicago, was the Supreme Court’s first encounter with racist speech. The Illinois statute, enacted in 1917, was one of several hate speech or “group defamation” laws that existed in the United States during the first half of the twentieth century. Commentators believed that the Supreme Court’s approval of the Illinois statute would lead other jurisdictions to enact hate speech laws. Yet Beauharnais facilitated the demise of hate speech laws. This article tells the story of Beauharnais v. Illinois and explains why the Supreme Court’s ruling helped bring about the end of hate speech laws in America.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Wieboldt on Ideas With(out) Consequences?: The Natural Law Institute and the Making of Conservative Constitutionalism During the Cold War, 1947-1951

Dennis J. Wieboldt, III, is publishing Ideas With(out) Consequences?: The Natural Law Institute and the Making of Conservative Constitutionalism During the Cold War, 1947-1951 in volume 42 of the Law & History Review (2025). Here is the abstract.

Recent scholarship on conservative constitutionalism in the United States focuses near exclusively on the development of originalism as a method of constitutional interpretation. Before conservatives turned to originalism to counter the perceived threats of an activist judiciary in the 1980s, however, this article demonstrates that conservatives employed a very different interpretive philosophy to counter a very different perceived threat. To do so, this article reconstructs the history of a conservative legal movement that predated "the" conservative legal movement. Indeed, this article uncovers how conservatives employed natural law philosophy to respond to the elite legal academy's seemingly morally foundationless positivism during the Cold War. The network of natural lawyers that sustained this earlier movement was deeply indebted to the Natural Law Institute (NLI), an academic initiative of the University of Notre Dame established in 1947. By framing the founding fathers' natural law philosophy as a bulwark of individual liberty against the encroachments of legal realists, World War II-era totalitarians, and Cold War communists, the NLI created what the political scientist Amanda Hollis-Brusky has termed a "political epistemic network." In concluding, this article suggests that recovering the history of the NLI's epistemic network reveals the importance of natural law to the making of conservative constitutionalism during the Cold War.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Monopoli on A "New" New Departure

Paula A. Monopoli, University of Maryland School of Law, has pulished A "New" New Departure at 102 Washington University Law Review 1961 (2025). Here is the abstract.

In the wake of enactment of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, women’s rights activists embarked on an exercise in popular constitutionalism known as “the New Departure.” Frustrated by the failure of Congress to include women in the Reconstruction Amendments, suffragists turned to a strategy based, in part, upon republican theory. They argued that women had an inherent right to vote grounded in natural law and in their status as citizens of the United States under the Fourteenth Amendment. They operationalized that theory by engaging in mass-voting events and were prosecuted for illegal voting. These activist efforts came to an end in 1875 when the U.S. Supreme Court rejected that theory in Minor v. Happersett. This paper situates the New Departure at the beginning of a historical continuum that includes two subsequent periods in feminist legal history—the Progressive Era and the period which began in the wake of the Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health. It explores how women’s rights activists in each of these three periods have rejected originalism as an interpretive methodology that, by its very terms, has a subordinating effect on women’s constitutional status. Such activists have proposed alternative interpretive methods which centered women and their legal, economic, and social status. Feminist constitutional advocacy in the post-Dobbs period continues in this tradition by resisting the dominant interpretive method and arguing for a “new” New Departure toward interpretive methods which elevate rather than subordinate women’s constitutional status. Exploring feminist constitutional strategies across time illuminates a history and tradition that may have a generative effect for current efforts to restore the right to abortion and establish a broader reproductive justice.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Katz on "May It Please Her Honor": The United States' First Women Juges, 1870-1930

Elizabeth D. Katz, University of Florida College of Law, has published "May It Please Her Honor": The United States' First Women Judges, 1870-1930 at 102 Washington University Law Review 1729 (2025).

Between 1870 and 1930, hundreds of women served as judges in the United States. While a small number compared to the men who served, these pathbreaking officials were particularly visible and influential in women's efforts to secure political rights and advance in the legal profession. Women's progress in obtaining judgeships developed in a regional pattern, with women in the Midwest and West able to secure earlier and broader jurisdiction positions than their counterparts in the Northeast and South. Seeking access to the judiciary, women in conservative states made gendered arguments about women's supposed superiority in overseeing cases involving women, children, and families. Some demonstrated women's skill in handling juvenile and family matters through service as the country's first probation officers, a step that supported women's selection as judges in juvenile and family courts. Regardless of location or type of court, women judges attracted significant attention because they seemed to embody the promise and perils of women's increasing political and professional power. Yet since most served in local trial courts, nearly all are forgotten today. This Article recovers the stories of these overlooked trailblazers, offering the most comprehensive account of the obstacles they faced and the strategies they deployed to join the country's judicial benches.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Priel on The Political Theories of the Legal Realists

Dan Priel, City University of Hong Kong School of Law; York University, Osgoode Hall Law School, has published The Political Theories of the Legal Realists. Here is the abstract.

A popular view about the legal realists is that, either knowingly or inadvertently, they advanced ideas inconsistent with traditional values, democracy, and the rule of law. Another view about them suggested that the realists had no political theory: they only offered a descriptive (empirical) theory of adjudication, albeit one that has normatively "quietist" implications. In this essay, I challenge both views. I argue that there were two legal realist camps whose jurisprudential ideas presupposed two quite different political theories. One group of legal realists consisted of public utilitarians who were consciously inspired by Bentham, wanted to turn legal and political theory into a science, and who thought law should be evaluated by its ability to increase social welfare. The other group had a very different political theory underlying its approach to law. For these legal realists, law was a traditionary institution, which should reflect, and be continuous with, community customs and values. After showing these different views, I show their relevance to contemporary debates in different areas of law.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

LCH 2026 Conference Scheduled for June 17-18, 2026 at DePaul College of Law

The Association for the Study of Law, Culture, and the Humanities will hold its 2026 conference June 17-18, 2026 at the DePaul University College of Law, in Chicago. The CFP will be available soon.

Submissions will be due on January 31, and the Association will send notifications shortly after that. 

In the meantime, you can view all the recent conference programs here. Here's a link to the 2026 conference website.

Rhodes on A Silence after Slaughter-House: Nineteenth-Century State Constitutional Substantive Rights, Liberties, and Privileges

Charles W. (Rocky) Rhodes, University of Missouri (Columbia) Law School, has published A Silence after Slaughter-House: Nineteenth-Century State Constitutional Substantive Rights, Liberties, and Privileges at 85 Louisiana Law Review 439 (2025).

In rejecting federal constitutional challenges to the Louisiana legislature’s exclusive butchering grant in the Slaughter-House Cases, the United States Supreme Court opined that it was the states’ obligation to protect fundamental privileges, such as rights to acquire and possess property, engage in trade and commerce, and pursue happiness, subject only to those restraints necessary for the public good. But the states met this charge with silence. State courts across the nation consistently parroted Slaughter-House’s reasoning, even while occasionally acknowledging the decision did not bind their interpretation of state constitutional provisions guaranteeing fundamental rights, liberties, privileges, and immunities. Although two states ratified arguably responsive constitutional provisions affording protection to state privileges and immunities, their judiciaries also followed the Supreme Court’s lead. Yet a minority of states, both before and after Slaughter-House, specifically targeted exclusive state legislative grants through anti-monopoly state constitutional provisions or through common-law doctrines. While not affording broad protections for their citizens’ rights and liberties, these constitution makers and state judiciaries attacked the specific perceived problem through either the majoritarian convention and ratification process or within the majoritarian features of the common law. This symposium piece explores the salient lessons this nineteenth-century response offers for the past, present, and future of state constitutional interpretation in Louisiana and throughout the nation. Ascertaining the meaning of universal American foundational jurisprudential principles—such as liberty, rights, privileges, and immunities—has always been a predominantly shared judicial enterprise, despite some arguably significant textual variations among America’s constitutions. But state courts depart more frequently from the universal approach and federal constitutional law’s influence when supported by either a precise state constitutional guarantee targeting the issue or a longstanding state common-law tradition. These methods typically prevail when the state constitution’s design and accompanying institutional incentives reinforce the majoritarian features of state constitutionalism. This explains the state constitutional response to Slaughter-House over 150 years ago and still holds true today.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Vasconcelos Vilaça on Law as a Semiotic Time Machine

Guilherme Vasconcelos Vilaça, Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM), Law School, has published "Law as a Semiotic Time Machine." Here is the abstract.

This chapter examines several semiotic dimensions of the relation between law and time. Focusing on Tanpınar's novel The Time Regulation Institute, it emphasizes the interaction between different temporal standards, subjectivities and normative sources, and its role in giving meaning to individual and social life. Given law's powers as a time machine the chapter also discusses political projects that supress time, revealing how categories of collective life depend on certain semiotics of time.

Download the essay from SSRN at the link.

Davies on Sherlock Holmes: Real or Imagined? Living or Dying?

Ross E. Davies, George Mason University Law School; The Green Bag, has published Sherlock Holmes: Real or Imagined? Living or Dying? at 2025 Baker Street Almanac I. Here is the abstract.

Readers of the November 22, 1913 issue of Collier’s Weekly magazine had the joy of taking in Arthur Conan Doyle’s new Sherlock Holmes story, “The Adventure of the Dying Detective.” Recipients of the nifty little Christmas 1913 keepsake booklet of “The Dying Detective” put out by the advertising department at Collier’s got to read almost exactly the same story. The typesetters did a near-perfect job of making sure that the text of “The Dying Detective” in the booklet matched the text in the magazine. Indeed, there are just three notable differences between the booklet and magazine texts. The first two differences appear to be intentional and definitely are not defects. The third is, alas, a typographical finish-line fail. While there does not appear to be much worthy of study in the textual differences between the two 1913 Collier’s versions of “The Dying Detective,” addingThe Strand Magazine to the mix may change things. There is at least one difference between, on one hand, both of those Collier’s versions and, on the other hand, the version in the December 1913 Strandthat might merit a closer look. On page 609 of The Strand, while conversing with Dr. John Watson, Holmes says, “Strange how the brain controls the brain!”

Download the essay from SSRN at the link.

Balkin and Levinson on Casebooks, Canons, and Constitutional Memory

Jack M. Balkin, Yale University Law School, and Sanford Levinson, University of Texas Law School, are publishing Casebooks, Canons, and Constitutional Memory as a Yale Law School Public Law Research Paper.

Why edit a constitutional law casebook? One might want to shape how professors teach the subject and how students learn it. But the influence of casebook editors is limited. Most students at most law schools will never practice constitutional law, and those that do probably deal with subjects not in the standard introductory course. Editing a casebook involves the construction of a canon. The canon in literature is organized around great works of excellence. By contrast, the canon in constitutional casebooks does not reflect the best opinions ever written; instead it reflects generations of political and legal struggles over the Constitution. There are three kinds of canons in constitutional law, and in constitutional law casebooks: (1) the pedagogical canon of materials that students need to know to be well-trained lawyers; (2) the cultural literacy canon of materials that citizens need to know to understand their constitutional system; and (3) the constitutional theory canon of materials that are grist for the mill of serious academic discussion. Each of these canons has a politics, and different casebooks may align themselves with different political and legal visions and movements. Casebooks are also sites of collective memory. A casebook foregrounds what teachers and students are likely to focus on and remember. What is left out of teaching materials is more likely to be forgotten. Hence constitutional law casebook authors are almost inevitably memory entrepreneurs, who seek to get people to remember certain things or remember them differently. But casebook editors are hardly all-powerful memory entrepreneurs. Authors must work with their coauthors to decide what materials to include and delete in successive editions. Casebook authors face serious constraints from publishers. Publishers demand frequent new editions to undercut sales of used casebooks; and they want casebooks to be ever shorter and simpler to understand. Perhaps most important, casebook authors feel obliged to cover contemporary issues in constitutional law. Those issues are not in their control. They are shaped by the continuous interaction and collision between the political branches and the courts, and especially the United States Supreme Court. In this way the Supreme Court exercises vast control over the content and organization of constitutional law casebooks. This creates important problems of constitutional memory. If the Supreme Court overrules a line of cases, those cases are likely to be flushed down the memory hole unless casebook editors are willing to sacrifice other valued content. The Supreme Court constantly destroys existing canons of constitutional law and reconstitutes them through its choice of cases to decide. Casebook authors must carefully consider how much of this constant churning and change is noise and how much is genuinely important and lasting for understanding the U.S. Constitution. This makes casebook authors' limited choices about what to remember especially important. At most, by placing certain materials before professors and students, casebook authors can provide opportunities to recall and absorb what is most important about our constitutional traditions. Yet what others do with those materials--and those memories--is ultimately beyond casebook authors' control.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Pasker on "Which History has Condescended to Notice": Black Testimony in Antebellum Courts

Robert B. Pasker, CUNY Department of History, has published "Which History has Condescended to Notice": Black Testimony in Antebellum Courts. Here is the abstract.

This study investigates the contested admissibility of Black testimony in American courts between 1790 and 1865, analyzing 73 appellate opinions across 11 states and the District of Columbia. Contrary to the prevailing historiography that portrays antebellum statutes as universally excluding Black voices, these cases reveal that judges frequently exercised discretion to admit testimony where exclusion threatened the courts’ procedural capacity to adjudicate. The analysis demonstrates that judicial reasoning prioritized institutional functionality rather than moral or rights-based considerations. A central challenge was methodological: appellate case law is vast, dispersed, and embedded in archaic legal language that resists conventional search tools. To overcome this, I developed Roscoe, a machine-learning system designed to perform conceptual searches, generate topical classifications, and produce plain-language summaries of nineteenth-century case law. Named for Roscoe Pound, the system allowed efficient retrieval and categorization of relevant cases from hundreds of thousands of digitized opinions. Roscoe not only enhanced recall and precision in identifying Black testimony cases but also facilitated thematic grouping across jurisdictional boundaries, making possible a genuinely national analysis. The findings expose the structural contradiction at the core of antebellum jurisprudence: statutes that categorically barred Black testimony collided with the judiciary’s pragmatic need for probative evidence. Appellate decisions show how Black participation forced courts to adapt in ways that preserved institutional authority while reinforcing racial hierarchy. This duality—judicial flexibility without recognition of Black rights—complicates prevailing narratives of antebellum legal history and demonstrates how digital methodologies can expand the evidentiary base of legal historiography.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Bond on Representations of Law and Race Revisited: An Updated Survey of Recent American Film

Cynthia D. Bond, UIC School of Law, has published Representations of Law and Race Revisited: An Updated Survey of Recent American Film at 30 Denver Sports and Entertainment Law Journal 51 (Spring 2025). Here is the abstract.

This article revisits the author's Laws of Race/Laws of Representation: The Construction of Race and Law in Contemporary American Film, 11 Univ. Tex. Rev. of Sports and Ent. L. 219 (2010), surveying recent developments in mainstream films' depiction of the interrelated narratives of law and race. This article applies to current film the 2010 article's paradigm, which articulated three key narrative aspects of depictions of race and law in popular film: 1.) the raced construction of the lawyer-hero; 2.) the denial or displacement of the law's role in constructing race and race-based discrimination; and 3.) the suppression or revision of politics and political history. Using this paradigm as a point of departure, the article examines a range of films, TV shows, and streaming series that grapple with race under law. Particular focus is paid to films created post-2020, in light of social movements like Black Lives Matter and the attendant increased public dialogue regarding racialized legal disparities in American life. Beyond displaying a mere statistical uptick of racially diverse casting, films and series of the last fifteen years reveal that popular culture can engage notions of race and its place under law in a more direct and nuanced way.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Call For Expressions of Interest: International Handbook of Legal Language and Communication: From Text to Semiotics; Section 3: Justice in the Media Age-- Law, Communication, and Public Perception

Call For Expressions of Interest

International Handbook of Legal Language and Communication (IHLLC): From Text to Semiotics
Editor-in-Chief: Anne Wagner
Publisher: Springer

Section 3: Justice in the Media Age — Law, Communication, and Public Perception

Section Editors: Jerome Tessuto & Vijay Kumar Bhatia
Contact: Tessuto Jerome (t.jerome@libero.it) & Vijay Kumar Bhatia (vjkbhatia1@gmail.com)

We invite proposals for chapters for Section 3 of the IHLLC, which examines the evolving relationship between media, digital communication, and the legal system—and how these shape public perceptions of justice, cultural identity, and collective memory. We welcome contributions that bridge law, linguistics, communication, media studies, and semiotics.

This section explores:

• How traditional media (press, TV, radio) construct legal narratives and influence trust in institutions.
• The role of social and digital platforms (e.g., X/Twitter, Facebook, YouTube) in real-time legal discourse, advocacy, and mobilization—as well as the risks of misinformation and prejudgment.
• The emergence of digital evidence, its authenticity and admissibility, and the impact of virtual courtrooms on procedure and participation.
• Media’s role in collective memory, reform, and accountability, including the responsibilities of tech companies and regulators in moderating harmful content while safeguarding free expression.

Suggested Themes (non-exhaustive)

• Media trials, open justice, and the right to a fair trial
• Framing of courts, judges, and litigants in legacy media
• Social media activism, hashtag movements, and legal reform
• Disinformation, prejudicial publicity, and contempt risks
• Digital evidence: capture, authenticity, admissibility, and fact-finding
• Virtual hearings, remote justice, and access to justice
• Platform governance, content moderation, and intermediary liability
• Online hate speech, defamation, harassment, and remedies
• Investigative journalism, watchdog roles, and legal accountability
• Collective memory, cultural identity, and legal storytelling
• Comparative and cross-jurisdictional analyses
• Methods: discourse analysis, corpus linguistics, multimodal/semiotic analysis

Submission Guidelines

Please email your Expression of Interest (EOI) to Tessuto Jerome (t.jerome@libero.it) and Vijay Kumar Bhatia (vjkbhatia1@gmail.com) including:

• Tentative chapter title (subject to revision)
• Author name(s)
• Institutional affiliation(s)
• Country
• Short abstract

Chapters should be substantial, literature-based, and accessible in tone, engaging the handbook’s semiotic perspective on law and communication. Revisions are possible through the production process.

Timeline: Deadlines for full chapters are flexible (typically 6–12 months after acceptance, with extensions possible).

All information, including author guidelines, templates, and Q&A, is available on the IHLLC project website:
👉 https://meteor.springer.com/project/dashboard.jsf?id=1949&tab=About&mode=ReadPage&entity=15466

Call for Applications: National Humanities Center Residential Fellowships 2026-2027

National Humanities Center Residential Fellowships 2026-27 

The National Humanities Center invites applications for academic-year or semester-long residential fellowships for scholars of the humanities. 

Fellows enjoy private studies, in-house dining, and superb library services that deliver a variety of research materials while they are in residence. Mid-career, senior, and emerging scholars with a strong record of peer-reviewed work from all areas of the humanities are encouraged to apply. 

(Please note: applicants must have received a PhD or equivalent scholarly credentials five years prior to applying to qualify.). Scholars from all parts of the globe are welcome; stipends and travel expenses are provided. 

 For more information about the NHC fellowship experience, eligibility requirements, or to apply, please visit this link: https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/scholarly-programs/. 

Applications are due by 11:59 p.m. ET, October 2, 2025. 

FAQs: https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/scholarly-programs/faqs/ 

Queries re. application and program: fellowships@nationalhumanitiescenter.org

Mitchell on The Narrative Fragmentation of International Legal History

Ryan Mitchell, The Chinese University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law, has published The Narrative Fragmentation of International Legal History at 27 Journal of the History of International Law 57 (2025). Here is the abstract.

The historiography of international law is highly pluralistic and resistant to unifying master narratives. This pluralism is reflected in diverging authorial strategies. To categorize such strategies, this article borrows Hayden White's typology of 'emplotments', or narrative logics, as a useful method of classification. As the article shows, leading accounts of international law's history have often involved conflicting forms of subjective identification with protagonists and forces. This article also suggests that the turn from a relatively homogeneous understanding of international legal history to one characterized by inescapable fragmentation can be dated to the geopolitical, ideological, and cultural transitions of the 1950s-60s. Entrenched ideological conflict and decolonization resulted in a stubbornly diverse historiography that remains the essential condition of the field today. For modern historians of international law, it is crucial to recognize this narrative fragmentation as well as the resulting choices it imposes upon authors making sense of the past.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.