Call For Abstracts: Human Studies and Free Speech Adjudication: From Theory To Practice

From Laura Little, Professor of Law, Temple University School of Law:

The International Society for Humor Studies is soliciting abstracts for its upcoming conference (36th ISHS conference) in Niterói, Brazil, 6-10 July 2026. The Special Interest Group focusing on Humor, Free Speech, and the Law is convening a panel titled Humor Studies and Free Speech Adjudication: From Theory to Practice. We welcome proposals for 20-minute papers addressing one or more of the following questions: • How can insights from humor research help judges, lawyers, or social media regulators develop a fair and nuanced approach to judicial decisions regarding humorous expression? • How can these insights be translated into actionable guidelines for judicial training, attorney counseling, advocacy or online content moderation? And how can this ‘translation’ exercise, in turn, open up new avenues for humor research? • What are the challenges and opportunities offered, in this respect, by a closer dialogue between different branches of humor scholarship (interdisciplinarity), as well as between academic research and everyday judicial practice or content moderation (transdisciplinarity)? Should you be interested in participating, please send an abstract (max. 300 words) and a short biographical note to both Dr Alberto Godioli (a.godioli@rug.nl) AND Prof. Laura E. Little (laura.little@temple.edu) by February 10th, 2026. For more information on the Special Interest Group’s activities, please visit the website of ForHum: Forum for Humor and the Law.

West Coast Sexuality, Gender & Law Conference: Abstract Submission Deadline January 5, 2026

 Reminder from Yvonne Lindgren, Professor, UMKC School of Law:

Dear all, This is a reminder about and deadlines related to the upcoming third annual West Coast Sexuality, Gender & Law Conference. This year, the conference will be held on March 13-14, 2026 in Irvine, California. ABSTRACT SUBMISSION DEADLINE: The deadline for submitting abstracts for consideration is January 5, 2026. To submit, please submit a CV and an abstract of no more than 500 words here (again by January 5, 2026). Submissions will be vetted by the organizing committee (listed below). Selection will be based on the originality of the abstract as well as its capacity to engage with the other papers in a collaborative dialogue. Participants will be notified of their selection as soon as feasible after the due date. Drafts of papers will be due approximately two weeks prior to the Conference.    If you would like to attend by serving as a commentator: - If you are not submitting an abstract but would like to attend the conference in the role of a commentator on someone else's paper, or if you are presenting a paper and would be willing to also serve as a commentator, please use the same link. Commentators are essential to the success of the conference, so be a good citizen and show up for your fellow scholars!   We look forward to your submissions and participation. Questions can be directed to the organizing committee members at westcoastgslconf@gmail.com.   Thank you!   Luke Boso, Southwestern Andrew Gilden, Southwestern Courtney Joslin, UC Davis Yvette Lindgren, UMKC Kaipo Matsumura, Loyola LA Brian Soucek, UC Davis Ari Ezra Waldman, UC Irvine

Call For Expressions of Interest: International Handbook of Legal Language and Communication, Section 26: Criminal Law and Communication in Immersive and Transnational Digital Environments

 Call For Expressions of Interest

INTERNATIONAL HANDBOOK OF LEGAL LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION 

🚨 Call for Interest – Section 26: Criminal Law and Communication in Immersive and Transnational Digital Environments 🚨

 

 

 

Editor: Sou Hee Yang

 

We invite scholars, legal practitioners, linguists, and interdisciplinary researchers to express interest in contributing to Section 26 of our upcoming volume, which will explore how legal language and communicative frameworks are adapting to the complexities of crimes committed in immersive and transnational digital spaces—including the metaverse, VR platforms, and decentralized online networks.

 

This section goes beyond conventional cybercrime. We're particularly interested in new legal challenges around virtual sexual violence, identity manipulation, consent violations, and non-physical forms of harm that occur in avatar-mediated or digitally simulated environments.

 

https://meteor.springer.com/ihllc

 

Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):

 

🔹 Linguistic and legal definitions of violence and consent in immersive interactions

🔹 Comparative criminal law across jurisdictions (UK, South Korea, US, and beyond)

🔹 Virtual groping, stalking, and coercion – how law responds to new forms of sexual harm

🔹 Legal semiotics – what avatar gestures mean in court

🔹 Jurisdictional friction and the linguistic politics of cross-border prosecution

🔹 Terminological innovation – how laws invent language for emerging crimes

🔹 Discursive representation of digital victims and justice for the “invisible” harmed

 

This section foregrounds comparative and cross-cultural perspectives, legal and linguistic innovation, and the pressing question of how legal meaning is made in digitally immersive and borderless environments.

 

📢 If your work intersects with law, language, digital environments, or virtual harm, we’d love to hear from you.

 

📩 To express interest or request more information, please contact: 

Sou Hee Yang

 

 ssophiey@toki.waseda.jp

 

Help us shape the conversation at the frontiers of law, language, and digital life.

Feel free to share widely across your networks! 🌐 #DigitalLaw #VirtualHarm #LegalSemiotics #MetaverseJustice #CriminalLaw #LegalLinguistics

 

Call For Expressions of Interest: International Handbook of Legal Language and Communication, Section 12: Constitutionality, Normativity, and the Limits of Law

 Call For Expressions of Interest

INTERNATIONAL HANDBOOK OF LEGAL LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION - SPRINGER

 

https://meteor.springer.com/ihllc

 

📣 Call for Interests – Contribute to the International Handbook of Legal Language and Communication

 

🔍 Section 12: Constitutionality, Normativity, and the Limits of Law

📘 Editors: Ana Margarida Simões Gaudêncio & José Manuel Aroso Linhares

 

We are currently seeking expressions of interest for contributions to Section 12 of the International Handbook of Legal Language and Communication. This section invites critical engagement with the boundaries, authority, and evolving semiotics of law in the face of global challenges and shifting normative landscapes.

 

This section explores:

⚖️ How constitutional and normative frameworks define (and redefine) the authority of law

🌐 How global emergencies, digital governance, and environmental crises test the limits of legal systems

🧭 How legal autonomy, inter-semiotic practices, and normative conflicts shape law’s practical and theoretical horizon

 

Key themes include:

 

The Semiotics of Constitutional Authority

Normative Clashes in Contemporary Governance

Landmark Cases Testing Legal Boundaries

Global Crises and Emerging Constitutional Norms

Juridical Autonomy and the Limits of Law

The Role of Intersemioticity in Legal Discourse

The Counterpoint between Juridicity and Constitutionality

Rethinking Instrumentalism and Conventionalism in Legal Reasoning

This is a unique opportunity to contribute to a landmark international volume and to engage with foundational questions concerning the identity and limits of law in an increasingly plural, contested, and interconnected world.

 

✉️ Interested in contributing?

We welcome abstracts, ideas, or initial proposals. Please get in touch with us via email at jmarolinh@gmail.com & anagaude@fd.uc.pt

 

Let’s rethink the frontiers of legal meaning and authority together.

 

Call For Papers: International Conference on Constitutional Communities, KU Leuven, Belgium

 

CFP From Roger Ventura Cossin, KU Leuven:

Call for Papers

International conference on

Constitutional Communities

 

       When: 8-9 February 2024

       Where: KU Leuven (Institute of Philosophy and Faculty of Law), Belgium

       Deadline for abstract submissions: 25 October 2023 

 

Theme:

Today almost all countries are “constitutional communities” in a broad sense: their constitution provides the basic framework for their common life. This link between community and constitution is increasingly recognized and there is a growing awareness of the potential of constitutions for societal integration. Jürgen Habermas, with his notion of constitutional patriotism, made the case for a collective identity that does not rely on ethnic nationalism. At the same time, the belief that a constitutional document can be the source of a liberal collective identity has been criticized from various angles. A constitution is typically anchored at the national level, while in a globalized world social integration happens at many different levels. Moroever, courts have used the concept of “constitutional identity” to justify divergent interpretations of the rule of law and human rights and to uphold populist claims. Indigenous people sometimes see constitutional recognition as a new form of assimilation. And some critics have claimed that the concept is empty and abstract: constitutional principles are mostly the same across borders so how can they inspire a sense of community?

 

These developments raise important questions. How do constitutions create communities? Can they really do so? And should they? These questions can be answered from different disciplinary perspectives. Scholars in constitutional law and in the history of law have studied the working of constitutions since long. But legal and political philosophy should also weigh in, as philosophers from the past and the present have amply studied the relation between written laws and community. The issue of constitutional identity can also be approached from an empirical sociological perspective or even from a literary perspective, as it is ultimately the agency of a text that is at stake here. 

 

By engaging in an interdisciplinary dialogue about constitutions and community, this conference aims to explore the impact that constitutions have and can have in the functioning of communities, and to contribute to our understanding of the concept of constitutional identity.

 

Possible paper topics: 

- Constitutions and community building

- National and/or constitutional identity as legal instruments 

- The relation between constitutional identity and affiliated notions (sovereignty, constituent power, representation, …) 

- Constitutional recognition (of minorities, historically oppressed groups, rights of nature, …)

- Constitutional change 

- Specific philosophers on the role of constitutions 

- Constitutions as a literary genre

 

Submitting your abstract:

If you are interested in presenting your work at this conference, please submit an anonymized abstract (max. 400 words, in .doc, .docx or .pdf format) along with your name, title, and affiliation via e-mail to Ana Van Liedekerke (ana.vanliedekerke@kuleuven.be). The actual presentations can be 15 to 20 minutes long. Abstract should be submitted on 25 October 2023 (CET) at the latest. If accepted, you will be invited to develop your abstract into a full paper of around 5000 words; papers will be precirculated to all conference participants. We welcome submissions both from junior and from senior scholars. We especially encourage scholars from underrepresented groups to apply.

 

Conference Fee: There will be a registration fee of 75 euro to participate in the conference (40 euro for those attending just one day and reduced prices for KU Leuven students) and an additional fee of 75 euro for those wanting to attend the conference dinner.

 

Organizers: Raf Geenens, Stefan Sottiaux, Christophe Maes, Roger Ventura Cossin, Ana Van Liedekerke.

 

This conference is organized by RIPPLE (Research in Political Philosophy and Ethics Leuven) and the Leuven Centre for Public Law. It is part of an interdisciplinary research project on constitutional identity, jointly hosted by KU Leuven's Institute of Philosophy and KU Leuven's Faculty of Law and funded by FWO, the Research Foundation Flanders.

 

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Call For Abstracts, Law and Humanities Roundtable 2024 @DavidGurnham @law_humanities

From David Gurnham, Professor of Criminal Law and Interdisciplinary Legal Studies, School of Law, University of Southampton

I’m pleased to announce this Call for Abstracts for the sixth annual Law and Humanities Roundtable 2024: 'Kafka's imprint on law and the arts: 100 years since The Trial'. The event will be held in person, most likely at the University of Southampton in July 2024 (date & time tbc). We would be delighted to receive draft titles and abstracts (up to 200 words) for paper presentations responding to this theme by the deadline of Tue 2^nd Jan 2024. 

 

We welcome paper presentations on all topics and themes relating to the texts, performances, adaptations, translations, borrowings, of Kafka's work (including his novels and short fiction) and its influence and impact on law and legal studies.

 

Further details about this workshop, and publication plans in the journal Law and Humanities (a special issue to mark the centenary of The Trial's first publication in 1925) can be found in the CfA attached. Abstract submissions, as well as any informal queries, can be addressed to David Gurnham (d.gurnham@soton.ac.uk), or co-convenor Ekaterina Yahyaoui (ekaterina.yahyaoui@universityofgalway.ie).

 

Call For Abstracts: LSU Law Journal for Social Justice and Policy @LSULawCenter @KenLevy2020

                                                                 Call For Papers

 

LSU Law Journal for Social Justice and Policy

November 11, 2022

Virtual

 

The LSU Law Journal for Social Justice and Policy is pleased to announce its Call for Papers for our upcoming symposium on the Industrial Prison Complex System. The Symposium will take place in a virtual format on November 11, 2022. 

 

Submissions can include but are not limited to the following topics:

·      Capital Punishment

·      The Business of Private Prisons

·      Hard Labor as Punishment

·      Implications of the 8^th Amendment

·      Federal v. State v. Private Prisons

·      The implications of the current prison system

·      Restitution for Innocent individuals imprisoned

·      Sentencing Guidelines and the impact on prisons

·      Alternatives to Prison for non-violent offenders

·      Economic Impacts of the Current Prison System

·      Two-Year Anniversary of George Floyd: Where are we at now?

·      Decriminalizing Marijuana

·      Privatization of Probation

·      No Cash Bail v. Cash Bail

 

LJSJP seeks to elevate underrepresented voices in legal academia and to confront pressing social justice issues of the day. Academics at all levels and in all disciplines (not just law) are encouraged to apply.

 

To apply, please submit an abstract of approximately 350-750 words through this form by August 29, 2022.

 

 

 

Call For Abstracts: Law and Magic II

 Call For Abstracts:  Law and Magic II

 

Do you remember this book? Whether or not you do, the editor (Christine Corcos) is calling for abstracts for essays to fill a second volume of

 

 

 

 

                                                                 

Suggested topics might include, but are not limited to:

·       The law of fortune telling, tarot, phrenology, or other crafty sciences

·       The history of law and magic

·       Law and religion

·       Law as magic

·       Law and magic in popular culture

·       Law and magic in anthropology

·       Literature reviews of law and magic topics

·       Magic in the courtroom (using magic in advocacy)

 

 

 

For your convenience, here’s the table of contents from the first volume of Law and Magic (published 2010).

Loren A. Smith, Law and Magic: An Introduction Out of a Hat

Julie D. Cromer, It’s In the Cards: The Law of Tarot (and Other Fortunes Told)

Craig Freeman and Stephen A. Banning, Rogues, Vagabonds, and Lunatics: How the Right to Listen Cleared the Way For Fortunetellers

Pamela Edwards, Non-Mainstream Religions and the Law

Indra Spiecker genannt Doehmann, The Effects of Freedom of Information Laws on Corruption and the Quality of Decision-Making under U.S., E.U., and German Freedom of Information Laws

Christine A. Corcos,  “Ghostwriters”: Spiritualists, Copyright Infringement, and Rights of Publicity

F. Jay Dougherty, Now You Own It, Now You Don’t: Copyright and Related Rights in Magic Productions and Performances

Jacob Loshin, Secrets Revealed: Protecting Magicians’ Intellectual Property without Law

Florian Faust, Selling Secrets: Legal Problems of the Magic Market

Frederick A. Brodie, The Magic of Civil Procedure

Robert M. Jarvis, The Case of the Magician’s Assistant: McAfoos v. Canadian Pacific Steamships, Ltd.

Jessie Allen, Magical Realism

Wendy J. Turner, The Legal Regulation and Licensing of Alchemy in Late Medieval England

Eric J. Gouvin, On Death and Magic: Law, Necromancy, and the Great Beyond

Susan D. Rozelle, The Type of Possession Is Nine-Tenths of the Law: Criminal Responsibility for Acts Performed under the Influence of Hypnosis or Bewitchment

Garrett Epps,  “When You Awake You Will Feel No Remorse”: Stage Hypnotism and the Law

Peter W. Edge, Unsympathetic Magic: Charitable Status and Magical Practice in the United Kingdom  

Rebekah Heiser Hanley, Principled Conjuring Tails: A Twenty-First Century Lawyer’s View of the History of Animals in Magic

Lisa Johnson, Taking the Rabbit out of the Hat: Let the Animals Disappear from Magic Acts

Noel Marcovecchio, Hocus Ipsa Loquitur: The Affinity between Law and Magic

Kenneth M. Trombly, Conjuring and the Courtroom: All I Needed to Know about Trying Cases I Learned by Doing Magic Shows

We invite abstracts of up to 500 words on any topic linked to law and magic. 

 

Deadline for submission of abstracts: December 31, 2022

Send your submission as well as any questions about the project to: Christine Corcos, Richard C. Cadwallader and Judge Albert Tate Foundation Associate Professor of Law, LSU Law Center,  at ccorcos@lsu.edu

 

We’ll let you know of acceptances no later than January 15, 2023.

 Final essays may be up to 15,000 words in length, not including references, although we might consider some deviations from that length. The deadline for submission of final essays would be December 31, 2023.

 

Reminder: Call For Abstracts, Law and Visual Jurisprudence, Due December 1, 2021

 

Springer Law Book Series:

LAW AND VISUAL JURISPRUDENCE

 

 

Aesthetics of Law in External Frame: From Methodology to Manifestations

 

Editors: Anne Wagner & Kamil Zeidler

 

 

Department of the Theory and Philosophy of the State and Law Faculty of Law and Administration

University of Gdańsk, Poland

 

 

This call for papers is intended as an opportunity for dialogue and exchange of views in the field of various manifestation of law in the broad understood art or related to art, which are captured within the aesthetics of law. In view of the topics suggested in the call, we propose this book with the aim of promoting an interdisciplinary and fresh approach to the subject of aesthetics of law, in the following perception of it.

The juxtaposition of law and aesthetics from the very beginning raised many doubts and controversies, resulting mainly from the fact that aesthetics, associated primarily with art, shows incredible plasticity and changeability, while the law is characterized by a certain rigidity and formalism. The possibility of combining law and aesthetics was born, which grew out of pragmatic aesthetics, one of the contemporary theories of perception of aesthetics, which was born in the twentieth century. According to its assumptions, aesthetics is no longer only associated with art and a work of art and the aesthetic experiences that accompany them, but even the leading theses of pragmatic aesthetics have become de-aestheticization of art and aestheticization of everyday life. The development of pragmatic aesthetics has meant that aesthetic experiences, unsatisfied with art, will be satisfied in a different way, with the help of objects and phenomena surrounding the recipient. As a result, the law, omnipresent in everyday life, has become the subject of aesthetics.

The aesthetics of law actually appears as one of the parts of the philosophy of law that focuses on the relationship between law and aesthetical values, in their broadest sense. The aesthetics of law can be closed in its three dimensions: external, internal and the approach defined as “law as a tool of aestheticization”. The aesthetics of law in an external dimension deals with all manifestations of law, its motives, symbols and legal inspirations that have been

presented for centuries in the fine arts. It cannot be denied that in the history of painting, sculpture, literature and film, there are countless examples of works in which the source of artistic inspiration was the broadly understood issue of law. Law can therefore be a material for art and, just like art, affect its recipients, shaping their perception of law, precisely by means of how it is presented in a given work. In internal dimension, the subject of the aesthetics of law is the law itself, treated as a carrier of aesthetic values and corresponding experiences and evaluations, and legal activity itself can thus be treated as a creative activity. The third dimension refers to the law as “tool of aestheticization” of everyday life, which indicates the aesthetic function of law, implemented mainly by legal regulation and the legal norms they contain, which are the determinants of what is aesthetic.

 

This book is going to focus only on the external dimension of aesthetics of law, as a very broad and interdisciplinary field. The main aim of this book is to show various combinations of law with broadly understood art. A fresh and innovative look is important and highly desirable here – both methodological and empirical, focused on manifestations and examples of the aesthetics of law in external frames. Taking this into account, in an attempt to encourage the submission of papers, we invite participants to considers issues in the following grounds:

·        Law in art,

·        Law in literature,

·        Law in film,

·        Visualization of law,

·        Possible methodology in external dimension of the aesthetics of law,

·        Sociological aspects of the external dimension to the aesthetics of law.

 

Submissions following these themes as well as other possible ways of analysis related to the above topics will be welcomed.

Abstracts of 500 words (max.) should be submitted by [1^st December 2021] to Kamil Zeidler (kamil.zeidler@ug.edu.pl) with decisions made by [1^st February 2022].

Chapters should be no longer than 15,000 words (including footnotes, summary, references etc.).

The deadline for full papers is: [31^st May 2022]

Intangible Heritages: A Conference on Art, Design, Culture and Technology--Past, Present, and Future: Canterbury, UK (June 15-17, 2022)

 

Held in Canterbury, UK, by the University of Kent: (IN)TANGIBLE HERITAGE(S) looks at questions of digital art and computational design and how they are applied in contemporary and heritage settings.

 

(IN)TANGIBLE HERITAGE(S):

 

A conference on art, design, culture and technology – past, present, and future

 

 

Place: Canterbury, UK / Virtual.

Organisers: University of Kent

 

Dates: 15-17 June 2022.

Abstracts: 30 November 2021 (Round One)

Call for Abstracts: JurisApocalypse Now! Law in End Times, December 2-4, 2019 (LLHAA)

Southern Cross University School of Law and Justice, in partnership with the Law, Literature and the Humanities Association of Australasia (LLHAA), is proud to convene and organise the 2019 LLHAA conference titled JurisApocalypse Now! Law in End Times, which will be held at Southern Cross University Gold Coast Campus on 2-4 December 2019.

The conference will explore the intersection of legality, temporality and eschatology, the normatively uncertain and yet inherently creative space originated by the conflicting encounter between the orderly desire of law and the entropic tendency of apocalyptic narratives, with both forces cast against the backdrop of the ever-­deferred notion of time itself.

Furthermore, the conference is organised in conjunction with the 2019 Law and Society Association of Australia and New Zealand (LSAANZ) conference, titled Survive, Thrive, Die: Law in End Times, which will be held on 5-7 December 2019, still at Southern Cross University Gold Coast Campus. The two conferences, although distinct and separate, are nonetheless connected by a shared overarching theme, and are articulated around a shared Postgraduate Day, which will be held on the 5^th December. Scholars are invited, in a profoundly interdisciplinary manner, to participate in either or both conferences.

For further information, or if you have any query about the conferences, please visit https://sljresearch.net.au/lawinendtimes/

Southern Cross University School of Law and Justice, in partnership with the Law, Literature and the Humanities Association of Australasia (LLHAA), is proud to convene and organise the 2019 LLHAA conference titled JurisApocalypse Now! Law in End Times, which will be held at Southern Cross University Gold Coast Campus on 2-4 December 2019.

The conference will explore the intersection of legality, temporality and eschatology, the normatively uncertain and yet inherently creative space originated by the conflicting encounter between the orderly desire of law and the entropic tendency of apocalyptic narratives, with both forces cast against the backdrop of the ever-­deferred notion of time itself.

Furthermore, the conference is organised in conjunction with the 2019 Law and Society Association of Australia and New Zealand (LSAANZ) conference, titled Survive, Thrive, Die: Law in End Times, which will be held on 5-7 December 2019, still at Southern Cross University Gold Coast Campus. The two conferences, although distinct and separate, are nonetheless connected by a shared overarching theme, and are articulated around a shared Postgraduate Day, which will be held on the 5^th December. Scholars are invited, in a profoundly interdisciplinary manner, to participate in either or both conferences.

For further information, or if you have any query about the conferences, please visit https://sljresearch.net.au/lawinendtimes/

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS

Submission deadline: 31 July 2019

The Organising Committee invites the submission of abstracts of original work. Abstracts can be submitted for consideration for an oral presentation or a hard copy poster.

The Organising Committee will endeavour to notify presenters whether their proposed paper has been accepted at the beginning of each month following the abstract’s submission.

Submissions can be made using the following link:

https://sljresearch.net.au/lawinendtimes/call-for-abstracts/llhaa/