Benton at Queen Mary

Lauren Benton (credit)

We hear from Maksymilian Del Mar, Reader in Legal Theory, in the Department of Law, Queen Mary, University of London, that the Centre for Law and Society in a Global Context, which he co-directs, has organized a series of events around a visit this month by Lauren Benton, Professor of Law and History, Vanderbilt University, “and one of the world’s leading global legal historians.”

17 May.  CLSGC Annual Lecture/IHSS Inaugural Lecture by Professor Lauren Benton: Constitutional Panics and Imperial Power:

A counterrevolutionary strike by lawyers, a wave of cases brought by slaves against masters, a charge of illegal torture by a governor—legal actions such as these drew together protest, reform, panic, and constitutionalism in the British empire. As officials scrambled to respond to perceived threats to order, they debated the proper contours of the imperial constitution and tinkered with structures of legal pluralism. Counterrevolution and proto-liberalism blended together in the process. This lecture follows cycles of colonial reform and legal panic as they resolved into calls for greater imperial power as a constitutional necessity in the early nineteenth British empire.

18 May.  Masterclass with Postgraduate Students 

23 May.  Workshop on A Search for Sovereignty: Law and Geography in European Empires, 1400-1900 (2010) 

25 May.  New Book Symposium on A Rage for Order: The British Empire and the Origins of International Law 1800-1850 (2017).