Law & Humanities Blog

Davoli on Florida Man

2026-10-05T18:21:39.772-04:00

Joanmarie Davoli, Barry University School of Law, has published Florida Man. Here is the abstract.

Zephaniah Kingsley was the original Florida Man. Married to a woman from West Africa whom he had purchased as a slave, he prospered economically as a plantation owner and slave trader in Spanish Florida. When Florida was ceded to the United States, Kingsley served on the Legislative Council charged with developing the laws of the Territory of Florida for its transformation into a State. His proposals for laws to protect the rights of free blacks were dismissed as personal quirks. Kingsley's marriage, his lifestyle, and his views of slavery and freedom alienated him from both abolitionists and pro-slavery contingencies alike, and his writings have been historically portrayed as very Florida Man: eccentric, irrational, and shocking. Yet analyzing his papers from a scholarly perspective reveals that Kingsley was promoting a slave system more akin to Ancient Rome-a system that was not based upon race-than to 19th Century America. Indeed, he defends many of his ideas as stemming from the systems of slavery developed under the Spanish Code. Although unaware of the ancient legal roots of his own proposals, Kingsley's suggestions that slaves have legal protections as well as options for entrepreneurship and freedom through self-purchase were soundly rejected by his contemporaries. Had anyone taken Florida Man Zephaniah Kingsley seriously, Roman Law could have offered a model for both the peaceful elimination of slavery as well as recognizing equal rights for all races.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Extended Deadline for Call For Papers; Festschrift in Honor of Professor Lenora Ledwon

2026-10-03T17:42:36.222-04:00

Professors Christine Corcos (LSU Law) and Christian Lee Gonzalez-Rivera (STU Law) are delighted to invite abstract submissions (or full drafts, if ready) for a festschrift of essays and articles in honor of Professor Lenora Ledwon. We are extending the deadline to submit abstracts (or drafts) to November 15, 2026.

We invite pieces reflecting on any aspect of her work as well as original pieces unrelated to the latter. The central theme, however, is that of Law and Literature, both specifically as a jurisprudential approach and, more generally, as that boundless intersection between law, literature, and pop culture. Any reflection, then, on the relationship between any two of these three is welcome. This is a rare and wonderful occasion for senior and young professors in the field to publish jointly. Specific topics we especially welcome include: law, literature, and religion; law, literature, and philosophy; law, literature, and gender; and law, literature, and race.

The contributions will be published as a book, whether as a special volume of the St. Thomas Law Review or with an academic publisher, anywhere between Fall of 2027 and Spring of 2028. The pieces should range between 10,000 and 25,000 words, but we will accept longer submissions. Again, the extended deadline to submit abstracts (or ready drafts) to secure a place is November 15, 2026. For submissions and any other questions, please contact Professors Corcos (ccorcos@lsu.edu) and Gonzalez-Rivera (cgonzalezrivera@stu.edu).

Berresford on A Pumpkin Patch, a Typewriter, and Richard Nixon: The Hiss-Chambers Espionage Case

2026-10-02T14:54:38.669-04:00

John W. Berresford, Independent, has published A Pumpkin Patch, A Typewriter, and Richard Nixon: The Hiss-Chambers Espionage Case. Here is the abstract.

This is a history of one of the most famous trials in American history. It was also a political circus and a personal tragedy for the litigants. The article takes the reader through Congressional hearings in 1948, a libel suit, grand jury proceedings, two criminal jury trials, and appeals that ended only in the 1980s. In the end, it was proved that a drearily correct diplomat named Alger Hiss had been spying for the Soviet Union for years and that warnings about his and similar crimes had been ignored for too long. Hiss's chief accuser, Whittaker Chambers, was a strange and fascinating genius who originally was believed only by a freshman Representative named Richard Nixon. The personalities, public punches and counter punches, litigation strategies, evidence, legal rulings, and courtroom advocacy of both sides are examined in detail. Also described are what did not come out in the trials and the political impact of all this, as well as elite and public opinion about who was telling the truth.

Download the article from SSRN at the link. The text is taken from the author's podcasts [Ed.]

Cronan on Judges Removing Judges

2026-10-01T17:42:43.693-04:00

Liam Edward Cronan, Boston University School of Law; Ropes & Gray LLP, has published Judges Removing Judges in volume 75 of the Cleveland State Law Review (2027). Here is the abstract.

This Article offers new historical evidence to a timely constitutional question: when, and how, can a federal judge be removed from office? Federal judges are widely assumed to hold office for life, removable only by impeachment. But a minority of sources have suggested that the historical meaning of "good behavior" under Article III of the U.S. Constitution, which was adopted directly from English law, permits removal by a far more obscure means: a civil trial brought by a writ of scire facias. This interpretation has been starkly criticized, however, based on the absence of any case in which an English judge was removed after the early eighteenth century, when the use of "good behavior" became widespread and statutes first authorized judicial removal by England's legislature. But the same cannot be said for judges in British-ruled Ireland. Not long after the ratification of Article III, a series of Irish judges who held office during good behavior under the authority of English law engaged in misconduct-from publishing libelous articles to embezzling court fees-and faced removal proceedings. By analyzing the long-neglected records of their removal proceedings, this Article reveals that existing debate over judicial removal has overlooked a significant body of historical evidence: statements preserved in the record of these removal proceedings, and corroborated by English legal treatises and American founding-era sources, suggest that many leading political and legal authorities of the time believed removal for misbehavior could be achieved by several means, including by trial. As federal judicial tenure continues to face challenges, this history carries significant practical stakes. It adds a new perspective to unresolved debates over the power of judicial removal, complicates the assumption that the words "good behavior," as adopted by the U.S. Constitution, limit removal to impeachment, and offers a deeper understanding of the protections and limits of federal judicial office.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Last call for Inaugural Event: LHub-IHR History & Law Seminar

2026-09-30T11:44:53.310-04:00

From Lindsey Caffin IALS Digital Officer, IALS

📢 Final call for our inaugural event the LHub-IHR History & Law Seminar,

📅 Date: 2 October 2026
🕔 Time: 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM BST
📍 Location: IALS Conference Room, Institute of Advanced Legal Studies,
17 Russell Square, London, WC1B 5DR

Speakers include

🔹Charlotte Smith (The National Archives, UK)
'An Endless Appetite for Information: TNA's Court Records and Unexpected
Archival Treasures'

🔹Nandini Chatterjee (University of Oxford)
'Law in a Fragmented Landscape: Some Notes from Mughal India'. Drawing
on material from the Lawforms Project (https://lnkd.in/eX365eu6)

🔹Marilyn Clarke (Institute of Advanced Legal Studies)
'The Law Library Through a Decolonial Lens'

All welcome. Limited places so booking is essential.

🔗 Book now to reserve a place: https://ials.sas.ac.uk/law-humanities-hub/events/sources-legal-history

Joo on A Long Story: Queues, Dreadlocks, and Cycles in Civil Rights History

2026-09-30T11:27:45.995-04:00

Thomas Wuil Joo, University of California Davis School of Law, has published A Long Story: Queues, Dreadlocks, and Cycles in Civil Rights History. Here is the abstract.

The conventional justification for the twentieth-century civil rights revolution is "political process theory," under which courts should scrutinize legislation if prejudice against minorities caused failures in the democratic process. Commentators have argued that Equal Protection law has since shifted from (1) enhanced protection of minorities to (2) formally equal, or "colorblind," protection of all racial groups and now, toward (3) greater protection against "reverse discrimination," despite the white majority's dominance of the political process. This progression is consistent with Derrick Bell's "interest convergence theory," which holds that law will advance minority civil rights only when it also serves majority interests. This Article argues that Fourteenth Amendment law followed a similar three-stage progression from protecting the weak to favoring the strong, and that the pattern pervades civil rights law. In the earliest Equal Protection cases, federal judges invoked the phrase "all persons" to extend protection to Chinese immigrants and, eventually, to white persons. This Article focuses on Ho Ah Kow v. Nunan (1872), which invalidated an ordinance requiring the cutting an incarcerated Chinese immigrant's hair despite its religious significance. Ho was part of the shift from (1) protecting African Americans to (2) protecting all persons to (3) protecting the economic rights of the wealthy under substantive due process, a.k.a. "Lochnerism." Ho further illustrates the cyclicality of civil rights law in its striking resemblance to cases, including one currently before the Supreme Court, involving prison rules requiring cutting the dreadlocks of incarcerated African-Americans in violation of their Rastafarian beliefs. 1 Unlike Ho, the dreadlocks cases are brought under religious discrimination law. The law has come to favor religious over racial claims. This contributes to stage three of Equal Protection law: reduced protection of racial minorities. Religion law itself also moves through the three stages, from protecting the weak to protecting all to protecting the politically influential. The Establishment Clause permits state-sanctioned Christian expression while Free Exercise is invoked to benefit Christians at the expense of a marginalized group, LGBTQ+ persons. The persistence of the three-part pattern does not prove its inevitability, but it does suggest it is a foreseeable result of advances in minority civil rights.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Makarov on The Influence of Ethnic Customary Law: Customary Law on the Legislation of Stephen I: An Ethno-Legal Analysis and the Role of the King

2026-09-30T11:22:59.523-04:00

Timur Makarov, Saint-Petersburg State University of Aerospace Instrumentation, has published The Influence of Ethnic Customary Law: Customary Law on the Legislation of Stephen I: An Ethno-Legal Analysis and the Role of the King at 14 Studia Iurdica Cassoviensia 201 (2026).

This article examines the legal influence of ethnic legal traditions on the development of Hungarian law during the reign of King Stephen I. The extent of this influence is explored through an analysis of the social and political context, enabling a logical tracing of the cultural impact on Stephen I’s legislation. Particular attention is paid to the Nitra Slavs; the author concurs with Jan Steinhubbel’s view regarding the greater continuity of traditions that occurred under the Hungarian monarchy. To ensure a comprehensive understanding, the author analyses the influence and determines the role of Magyar legal traditions and the conditions under which they could spread and take root, drawing attention to the possibility of gradual assimilation and blending of legal traditions. The role of Roman law, which spread with Stephen I’s adoption of Christianity, is examined. The Frankish influence is mentioned separately. The author concludes that Stephen I’s legislation was an integral element of his open policy. The research demonstrates that both the king and the highest Hungarian nobility effectively and justifiably integrated Slavic administrative traditions and Western European legal standards into the framework of evolving Hungarian law.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Warden on Buck v. Bell at One Hundred

2026-09-30T11:16:32.453-04:00

Derek Warden, Louisiana Supreme Court, has published Buck v. Bell at One Hundred. Here is the abstract.

As Buck v. Bell nears its 100th anniversary on May 2, 2027, this article aims to reflect on that opinion, and to pay respects to its primary victim, Carrier Buck. It also aims to pay respect to those secondary victims harmed by it – both in the United States and around the world. To achieve its aims, this article seeks to analyze the historical underpinnings of the discrimination that led to Buck, how the opinion went wrong, explain the truth of Carrie Buck’s life, and look at the aftermath of the opinion on the globe into the modern day and into the future. To achieve its goals, this article is divided as follows. Part I investigates the historical attitudes towards people with disabilities. Part II discusses the eugenics movement. Part III discusses the life of Carrie Buck, the opinion in Buck v. Bell, and the many errors in that opinion. Part IV discusses the aftermath of Buck v. Bell both in the United States and around the globe. Part V discusses the modern disability rights movement as an opposing force to the discriminatory underpinnings of Buck v. Bell. Part V discusses the continued impacts of Buck v. Bell and the practices it condoned. Finally, Part VI looks toward a future where Buck may be overruled and takes note of issues that may represent the ghost of Buck v. Bell and the eugenics movement, though it makes no judgment on these issues.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Jacob on Roll of Law Part II: The Making of the Game

2026-09-28T15:58:47.685-04:00

Gregory Jacob, Regent University School of Law, has published Roll of Law Part II: The Making of the Game. Here is the abstract.

This second article relating to the rule-of-law-themed games "DOGE vs. ICE" and "Let's Kill all the Lawyers" details how the games and their theming were converted from an idea into actual, playable games that play fast, are action-packed, and encourage deep thought about the value of the rule of law.

Download the essay from SSRN at the link.

See also part I, at https://lawlit.blogspot.com/2026/09/jacob-on-roll-of-law-part-one-story.html.

Lee, Book Review of Arlyck on The Nation at Sea: The Federal Courts and American Sovereignty, 1789-1825

2026-09-28T15:29:09.842-04:00

THomas H. Lee, Fordham University School of Law, has published The Maritime Origins of Judicial Review: A review of Kevin Arlyck, “The Nation at Sea: The Federal Courts and American Sovereignty, 1789-1825” in LawFare on Aug. 21, 2026. Also forthcoming in the Fordham Law Review. Here is the abstract.

Professor Lee reviews Georgetown Law Professor Kevin Arylck's book, The Nation at Sea: The Federal Courts and American Sovereignty, 1789-1825 (Cambridge Univ. Press 2025) which shows "how federal courts used the flowing canvas of oceanic conflict during the nation’s first decades to gain legitimacy with the political branches and anchor the United States’ status as a co-equal sovereign in the eyes of European powers." Lee concludes by asking what "rule of law" means when the early federal courts rejected common law for the civil-law jurisprudence of the English High Court of Admiralty and shaped decisions to conform to the political needs of the young nation while balking from deciding the most sensitive legal questions such as slavery.

Download the review from SSRN at the link.

Smith on The Absence of Original Meaning in Second Amendment Cases

2026-09-28T11:53:11.729-04:00

Michael L. Smith, University of Oklahoma College of Law, is publishing The Absence of Original Meaning in Second Amendment Cases in volume 45 of the Quinnipiac Law Review (forthcoming 2027). Here is the abstract.

In New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, the Supreme Court set forth a two-step analysis for adjudicating Second Amendment challenges. At step one, courts are to consider whether the behavior the challenged law restricts falls under the Second Amendment’s plain text. If it does, courts should proceed to step two, where the burden is on the government to demonstrate that the law is consistent with a historical tradition of analogous firearm restrictions. Proving such a tradition is difficult, and results remain unpredictable. Governments and courts hoping to avoid such a historical quagmire might be inclined to decide cases at the first step of the analysis by concluding that a case involves individuals, activities, or arms beyond the Second Amendment’s plain text. One might think that the Court would be receptive to such arguments, as it has emphasized the importance of the original meaning of the Second Amendment’s text in its early cases. One would be wrong. The Court’s latest rulings in United States v. Hemani and Wolford v. Lopez render Bruen’s first step illusory. In Hemani, the Court bypassed the first step, concluding it had been conceded. More significantly, in Wolford, the Court relied on a prolonged hypothetical analysis of conduct the law at issue might burden, and limited consideration of historical evidence to the second step of the analysis where the burden is on the government to prove up a historical tradition that grounds the modern restriction. If such analysis is enough to overcome Bruen’s step one, just about anything will. This development demonstrates the Court’s unwillingness to engage with original public meaning—an approach that Justices and scholars frequently proclaim to be the dominant approach to constitutional interpretation. Instead, the Court’s textual analysis is limited to brief, permissive, and presentist accounts of the Second Amendment’s scope, with history reserved for applying, rather than interpreting, the Constitution. Governments and courts faced with Second Amendment challenges must therefore be prepared to slog through history in any case that may implicate an individual’s right to keep or bear arms.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Khan on Metacritique and Black Lives Matter Judicial Opinions

2026-09-28T11:47:17.739-04:00

Almas Khan, University of Mississippi School of Law, has published Metacritique and Black Lives Matter Judicial Opinions in Law and Critique / Recht und Kritik (Greta Olson et al., 2025) at 309-16. Here is the abstract.

This short essay theorizes and analyzes examples of Black Lives Matter judicial opinions.

Download the essay from SSRN at the link.

Call for Applications, 2026-2027: Association of Law Teachers

2026-09-28T11:40:49.863-04:00

Via Thomas Giddens, University of Dundee Law School

ALT Grants Scheme 2027 | Applications Now Open

The Association of Law Teachers now welcomes applications for the 2026-7 grants round. We have made up to £10,000 available to support research into all aspects of legal education, such as exploring questions around the nature of legal education and the public and private lives of law schools, innovation in learning and teaching, the student experience, and the use and impact of technology.

We are keen to support the development of early career academics and encourage such members to submit an application to the grant scheme.

Please visit the ALT website for the terms / conditions and application criteria, as well as the application form which must be returned to Dr Andrew Gilbert, Chair of the ALT Grants Committee (andrew.gilbert@open.ac.uk), by the deadline which is Friday 13 November 2026. Applicants will be notified whether they have been successful by Monday 30 November 2026.

Webinar: Peter Goodrich on Retinal Justice: Judicial Images and the Juridical-Methodological Construction of the Gaze

2026-09-24T11:55:15.396-04:00

From José Manuel Aroso Linhares

Dear Colleagues and Friends

Do not miss this working session with Peter Goodrich about the probative status of images, the visual construction of legal meaning, and the methodological challenges raised by juridical regimes of seeing.

Best,

José Manuel Aroso Linhares

I confirm that this is a webinar and therefore (although it is free) requires registration so that the link can be shared among the registrants.

Retinal Justice: Judicial Images and the Juridical-Methodological Construction of the Gaze: https://www.uc.pt/en/fduc/uciler/uciler-agenda/retinal-justice/

Legal Humanities Association: 2026 Funding Call

2026-09-24T11:39:40.558-04:00

From the Legal Humanities Association:

LHA Funding Call 2026

Call Details

The Legal Humanities Association (LHA) seeks applications for the funding of small-scale research projects within the ‘legal humanities’, broadly understood (see ‘LHA Aims and Purposes’, below). There is a limit of £500 for any individual application (see ‘LHA Budget’ below). While individuals can submit multiple applications, the LHA will normally only fund one project per applicant.

The LHA welcome’s applications for any kind of research activity within the legal humanities. Examples for this scale of funding include:

Funding for workshops and smaller events, covering such items as key speaker travel and accommodation and/or catering
Travel and accommodation for research trips to specialist libraries or archives
Costs of research services such as translation, transcription, etc
Other cost items for which a rationale can be provided by the applicant(s)

Items the LHA will not fund:

Subsistence and expenses beyond travel and accommodation
Honoraria and other similar payments
Costs deemed to fall outside the LHA’s aims and purposes (see below)

Email for queries and submissions: funding@legalhumanities.com

The deadline for applications is 30 September 2026.

Eligibility

All members of the Legal Humanities Association are eligible to apply for funding under this call. Projects for which funding is sought should be substantially complete by August 2027.

To find out how to become a member of the LHA, visit legalhumanities.com/join/

Funding Criteria

Applications will be judged in relation to the nature, importance, and outcomes of the proposed project or activity, considered in the context of the LHA’s aims and purposes (see below). The question of nature primarily goes to whether the proposal is within the scope of the LHA’s remit. The questions of importance and outcomes are more substantive, and look to the project’s significance, value, practicability, and potential effects. The submitted rationale should seek to justified these in disciplinary, practical, or other terms as appropriate to the project in question.

In all cases, the goal of the LHA’s funding is to be supportive of important work within the legal humanities community, broadly understood, and applications will be considered in a collegiate spirit.

Process: Applications will be reviewed by a panel made up of a small number of members of the LHA Governance Committee. The panel’s recommendations will then be reviewed and approved by a meeting of the LHA Governance Committee. While all applications are considered together, special consideration will be given to promoting those from Early Career Researchers and underrepresented groups within academia.

Application Requirements

The application deadline is 30 September 2026. To apply, email a single attached document containing the following sections.

Project Title

Applicant Details: Names and affiliations of all applicants

Contact Details: Email address for a single communicating or lead applicant

Project Rationale (300 words)

A short statement outlining the nature, importance, and outcomes of the project. Applications should clearly explain how the project furthers the LHA’s aims and purposes. If necessary, a rationale justifying that the project falls within the ‘legal humanities’ remit of the LHA should be included (see ‘LHA Aims and Purposes’ below).

Funding Rationale (100 words)

Please include details of why the funding being applied for is necessary and/or how it will be used to facilitate the project.

Budget

An itemised list of all cost items and details of any e.g. match funding or items for which funding is not being sought or that has an alternative source of financial support.

Email as an attachment to: funding@legalhumanities.com

Successful Applicants

Funds must be transferred to successful applicant or their institution by November 2026, with projects substantially completed by August 2027.

Successful applicants will also be required to provide a short report to the LHA (100-200 words) on the conduct of their project. A version of this report will be included on the LHA website, and may be used for other public-facing materials as appropriate.

The “Legal Humanities Association” should be acknowledged as a funder for the project in its materials and/or publications. LHA logo files will be available on request.

A Note on the LHA Funding Budget

The LHA has £1,500 available for member funding in its 2026 budget. This is the LHA’s first year, and it is hoped that as the Association grows then larger amounts of funding will become available for future funding rounds. Because the LHA’s budget is relatively limited, individual applications for funding should ideally be within a range up to £300, but we will consider applications up to a maximum total value of £500 per application. This is to help maximise the number of projects that the LHA can support.

LHA Aims and Purposes

For reference, from LHA Constitution, Art 3(1):

‘The aims and purposes of the Association are as follows: (a) to foster and support the development of cultural understandings of law and humanities-inflected legal scholarship, (b) to nurture and maintain an open community of scholars working in these areas, and (c) to facilitate personal, professional, intellectual, and scholarly development.’ (Full LHA Constitution)

For more details on what the LHA’s remit might encompass, see the LHA’s About page.

Ruotolo on Coyote v. Acme

2026-09-24T09:49:15.902-04:00

Gianpaolo Maria Ruotolo, University of Foggia, has published The Coyote Finally Has His Day in Court. The piece begins:

For more than seventy-five years, one rule has governed the Road Runner cartoons: Wile E. Coyote orders some ingenious contraption from ACME, activates it, and watches it turn against him. The rocket skates overshoot. The catapult fires the wrong way. The anvil obeys gravity with suspicious selectivity. Road Runner vanishes into the distance. The Coyote hangs in mid-air, realises what is about to happen, and falls. Then he gets up and starts again. In Dave Green’s Coyote vs Acme, however, he changes weapons. This time, he hires a lawyer.

Kastner on Deviance in Nineteenth-Century American Law and Culture

2026-09-24T09:11:29.615-04:00

Tal Kastner, Rutgers Law School, has published Deviance in Nineteenth-Century American Law and Culture. Here is the abstract.

Viewing slavery as a defining phenomenon of the American nineteenth century, this chapter traces the unstable and evolving relation in this era between norm or law and deviance or crime. The dynamic negotiations of the parameters of normativity of this period, not least as embodied in the law and in relation to slavery, significantly shaped American culture and society. As norms became the subject of dispute, shifting figures of deviance emerged. It is not until the end of the nineteenth century that certain practices, such as homosexual acts, come to constitute a deviant identity. Indeed, the deviant as an identity determined by an individual’s divergence from a norm does not enter into American usage until the twentieth century. Nonetheless, slavery—itself a contested legal and social phenomenon in this period—significantly shaped the ways normative social structures, including race, gender, and sexuality, are constructed in the course of the nineteenth century through law. Dubbed the South’s “peculiar institution”—in the sense of its distinctiveness to this particular society—slavery figures at the heart of the normative debate and resulting legal and social transformations of the nineteenth century. At mid-century, the contest over slavery precipitated discussion among abolitionists about the normative status of the Constitution. Adherence to the dictates of the law—a purported site of normativity—came to be seen by some as criminal, impacting the ongoing negotiation of the bounds of deviance. The discussion below explores how works of literature, including The Scarlet Letter, Bartleby, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, The Bostonians, and other works, along with legal developments and cultural constructs, reflect and participate in the negotiation of normativity in the nineteenth century, as informed by the transforming figure of slavery. In addition, it traces the normative social models and counter-models precipitated by slavery, such as the penitentiary, the ideal of contract, and marriage.

Download the chapter from SSRN at the link.

Solove on Philip Roth's Privacy Lesson in the Novel Operation Shylock

2026-09-23T10:48:13.797-04:00

From Daniel Solove, George Washington University Law School: A Privacy Torts Lessons from Philip Roth. It begins:

With its central theme of appropriating identity, Philip Roth’s novel Operation Shylock: A Confession (1993) involves a fictional account of himself meeting a man impersonating him. Roth decides to impersonate his impersonator.

Link to the essay here.

Forthcoming: Holocaust History (Bloomsbury)

2026-09-22T11:02:18.424-04:00

Forthcoming: Holocaust History (Bloomsbury). From the publisher's website:

Holocaust History provides access to a rich collection of primary and secondary sources to support students and instructors to consider the events, impact and legacy of this difficult chapter of history. The reference works, first person accounts, archival documents, and more help to bring to life the voices and experiences of victims beyond the dominant historical narratives. Students will not only gain an understanding of the events of the Holocaust, but of key topics such as racism, nationalism, extremism, and memory politics. The collection will also help them to develop key skills in historical interpretation, archival reading, and critical analysis. Available via perpetual access purchase or subscription to institutions worldwide.

Salib on The Bank of England and the British Constitution

2026-09-21T15:18:10.156-04:00

Michael Salib, Bank of England, has published The Bank of England and the British Constitution as LSE Legal Studies Working Paper No. 10/2026. Here is the abstract.

Prompted by the United States Supreme Court's decision in Trump v. Cook (2026), this article examines the constitutional position of the Bank of England within the United Kingdom's uncodified constitution. The article traces the Bank's development from its foundation in 1694 through nationalisation in 1946 and the grant of operational independence in 1997-98, showing how its constitutional significance has emerged through historical practice as well as statutory design. It argues that the Bank's enduring legal personality, sustained for more than 330 years, means that it does not merely exist within the constitution; it has become part of the constitutional fabric of the state itself. In particular, it argues that the Bank occupies a constitutionally distinctive place within the executive, as an institution of long historical standing, entrusted by Parliament with the exercise of independent expert judgement in safeguarding the value of the currency and maintaining the financial stability, while remaining accountable to Parliament and ultimately subject to the principle of parliamentary sovereignty. It argues that there is a good case that the Bank of England Act 1998 bears the hallmarks of a constitutional statute, structuring the relationship between Parliament, government and the central bank. Finally, it develops a constitutional analogy between the Bank and the judiciary: institutions entrusted with the exercise of specialised expertise and independent judgement, protected from improper political interference, yet accountable within a constitutional framework ultimately established by Parliament.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Call For Proposals: Law/Text/Culture

2026-09-21T11:36:49.171-04:00

From Law/Text/Culture (via Thom Giddens, University of Dundee):

Call for Special Issue Proposal for 2027 Law Text Culture Vol 31
Law Text Culture is a peer-reviewed interdisciplinary journal that explores law and jurisprudence across the intersecting domains of politics, aesthetics, and ethics. The journal publishes a single thematic special issue annually, curated by guest editors and designed to foster innovative encounters between law, culture, literature, philosophy, history, politics, visual arts, and related fields.

Proposal Requirements
Proposals (maximum 500 words) should include:
· a concise description of the proposed theme;
· a draft call for papers outlining the aims and scope of the issue;
· an indication of potential contributors and how they will be identified or invited;
· the anticipated range of genres and contributions (for example, scholarly articles, creative writing, visual works, interviews, or reflective pieces);
· brief details of the proposed guest editor(s).

Proposals should be submitted by 15 October 2026
Prospective guest editors are warmly invited to contact the Managing Editor at ltc-journal@uow.edu.au to discuss potential themes or proposals prior to submission. All submitted proposals will be considered by the Board, and its decision will be made by 15 November 2026.
Further information about the journal and the proposal process is available on the LTC website: LawText Culture – Proposals and Applications
--

CFP: Association for the Study of Law, Culture, and the Humanities

2026-09-21T10:51:32.814-04:00

From Simon Stern, President, the Association for the Study of Law, Culture, and the Humanities: CFP

We are excited to announce that we are now accepting submissions for the Twenty-Ninth Annual Conference of the Association for the Study of Law, Culture, and the Humanities. The conference will be held in person (with some online components) on May 27-28, 2027 at the University of California, Berkeley. This year's theme is "Discipline." You can find the call for papers on our website or view the attached PDF version.

We are also accepting applications for our annual Graduate Student Workshop, which will take place the day before the conference on May 26, 2027. Information on how to apply for the workshop can be found in the PDF or on our website here.

Please help us spread the word and circulate the CFP in your academic communities. We look forward to gathering together for another engaging conference and hope to see you in Berkeley!

Best regards,

Simon Stern, President, Association for the Study of Law, Culture & the Humanities

Yin on Microaggresstions Against Asian-Americans in Hollywood...and Law Schools

2026-09-21T10:39:12.126-04:00

Tung Yin, Lewis & Clark Law School, Boley Law Library, has published Microaggressions Against Asian-Americans in Hollywood…and Law Schools at 33 Asian American Law Journal 1 (2026). Here is the abstract.

Hollywood movies and television shows have a long history of offensive portrayals of Asian-Americans and Asians-what we now call microaggressions. In the 21st century, a new form of microaggression has emerged: taking Asian-American or Asian stories and erasing the Asian presence in favor of (usually) white characters, ostensibly on the grounds that Asian actors are not bankable. For example, the 2022 action thriller Bullet Train took a Japanese novel about Japanese professional killers on a shinkansen (bullet train) and kept the Tokyo setting, but cast white, Black, and Latino actors in most of the roles-a diverse group, but one that is not going to blend into the Japanese crowd. Intended or not, the lesson that Asian-Americans might draw is that our stories are not worth telling unless they involve people other than Asians.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Metzger on Abraham Lincoln Brings Roman Law To Illinois

2026-09-16T11:19:44.263-04:00

Ernest Metzger, University of Glasgow School of Law, has published Abraham Lincoln Brings Roman Law to Illinois in Die unverzichtbare Wissenschaft. The Indispensable Science. Festschrift für Wolfgang Ernst zum 70. Geburtstag. Essays in Honour of Wolfgang Ernst on the Occasion of his 70th Birthday (B. Gsell, T. Rüfner & U. Babusiaux, eds.,Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2026) at 603-614.

Abraham Lincoln’s legal practice is now studied a good deal thanks to the publication of his legal papers in 2000. Lincoln's practice was in the common law, but students of other traditions naturally wonder if there could be any Civil law i.e. Roman law traces. If there were, it might say something about Lincoln's intellectual reach, as well as the power of Roman law to do justice in an unlikely place: Illinois, only recently frontier. Happily there's one instance where Lincoln used Roman law and even won with it: an 1846 appeal to the Supreme Court of Illinois. He relied on a single proposition dealing with contract conditions, a proposition derived from Roman law and formulated some forty years earlier by the learned Kentucky judge and advocate George Bibb (1776–1859). We can't really credit Lincoln with knowledge of the Roman roots, but we can certainly credit him for recognising a powerful Roman rule that could effectively dispatch his opponent's case, in a way the common law authorities could not. Risinger v. Cheney, 7 Ill. 84 (1846). In this narrative there is also a (notional) thread linking Lincoln's Roman law to Thomas Jefferson, and to a book still residing in the Jefferson Library. Lincoln wouldn't have known this, but it would have pleased him.

Download the essay from SSRN at the link.

Arias-Barrera on Hacking the Financial Order: Mr. Robot, Financial Data as Critical Infrastructure and the Limits of Resolution Law

2026-09-16T11:11:30.686-04:00

Ligia Catherine Arias-Barrera, Eternado de Colombia University, has published Hacking the Financial Order: Mr. Robot, Financial Data as Critical Infrastructure and the Limits of Resolution Law. Here is the abstract.

This article examines Mr. Robot as a cultural legal text through which a central problem of contemporary financial regulation becomes visible: the systemic significance of financial data. It asks how financial law should conceptualise and govern the loss, corruption or destruction of records that constitute, evidence and administer financial obligations. The article argues that existing recovery, resolution, operational resilience and data governance frameworks remain principally institution centred. Even where they address cloud concentration, outsourcing and critical third-party risk, they generally assume that the financial institution, its records and the evidentiary basis of its obligations remain sufficiently available during a crisis to permit orderly intervention. Using cultural legal studies and formal adaptation analysis, the article reads E Corp and the 5/9 hack as a regulatory thought experiment. The series condenses within a single fictional institution the concentration of consumer credit, data extraction, technological infrastructure, private currency and political authority. Its central event demonstrates that the destruction of financial records is not simply an operational disruption. It compromises the capacity to identify claims, establish liabilities, protect consumers, supervise markets and resolve failing institutions. The article consequently develops the concept of financial data as critical infrastructure, understood functionally as data whose loss, corruption or unavailability would impair the continued administration of financial obligations or the stability of the financial system. The article concludes that financial regulation should identify and govern critical financial records according to their systemic function. This requires more than conventional cybersecurity or data protection obligations. It requires independently verifiable replication, tested recoverability across jurisdictions, effective supervisory access, clear responsibility among financial firms and technology providers, and governance arrangements capable of preventing private actors from becoming exclusive evidentiary points of failure in financial markets.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.