tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2266900169001601962024-03-19T00:30:31.275-04:00Legal History Blogscholarship, news and new ideas in legal historyernsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785634201759560130noreply@blogger.comBlogger13932125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226690016900160196.post-84705286648772517512024-03-19T00:30:00.018-04:002024-03-19T00:30:00.140-04:00Siegel & Ziegler on "Comstockery in the Court and on the Campaign" <p>Over at <a href="https://balkin.blogspot.com/2024/03/comstockery-in-court-and-on-campaign.html">Balkinization</a>, <b>Reva Siegel </b>(Yale Law School) and <b>Mary Ziegler </b>(UC Davis School of Law) report that <span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>they "have just posted </span><a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4761751"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span>Comstockery</span></i></a> on SSRN<span>,
the first legal history of the Comstock Act since the antiabortion movement
began arguing for reviving enforcement of the law in the wake of </span><a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf"><i><span>Dobbs
v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization</span></i></a><span>."</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>The posting is timely. They explain:</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span></span></span></p><blockquote><span>On March 26, <i>Food and Drug Administration v.
Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine</i> will return to the Supreme Court.
Representing the Alliance, the </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/10/09/alliance-defending-freedoms-legal-crusade"><span>Alliance
Defending Freedom (ADF), a leader of the Christian legal movement</span></a><span>
that has played key roles in </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/10/09/alliance-defending-freedoms-legal-crusade"><span>15
Supreme Court cases</span></a><span>, including <i>Dobbs </i>and <i>303
Creative v. Elenis</i>, has challenged the FDA’s authority to approve mifepristone,
a drug used in more than half of all abortions, under the relevant laws and regulations.
ADF has further sought to overturn several subsequent FDA decisions, including one
in 2021 permitting the use of telehealth for medication abortion. In the case
now before the Court, ADF argues that the removal of an in-person-visitation requirement
was arbitrary and capricious </span><a href="https://dm1l19z832j5m.cloudfront.net/2024-02/FDA-v-Alliance-for-Hippocratic-Medicine-2024-02-22-SCOTUS-Opening-Brief_0.pdf"><span>under
the APA</span></a><span>. ADF also makes a Comstock claim against the 2021
modification, asserting that the plain meaning of the statute bars the mailing
of </span><a href="https://dm1l19z832j5m.cloudfront.net/2024-02/FDA-v-Alliance-for-Hippocratic-Medicine-2024-02-22-SCOTUS-Opening-Brief_0.pdf"><span>any
abortion-related article</span></a><span>. This argument has received
attention from conservative judges, including Judge James Ho </span><a href="https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/23/23-10362-CV1.pdf"><span>of
the Fifth Circuit</span></a><span>; <span style="background: white; color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">in the district court, Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk granted
a motion for preliminary injunction in the spring of 2023 that would have
withdrawn the approval of mifepristone, reasoning that the statute plainly d</span></span><span style="color: black;">eclares
“nonmailable” anything “advertised or described in a manner calculated to lead
another to use it or apply it for </span><a href="https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/texas/txndce/2:2022cv00223/370067/137/"><span>producing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">abortion.</span></i>”</span></a></blockquote><a href="https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/texas/txndce/2:2022cv00223/370067/137/"><span></span></a><p></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>The authors' Balkinization post continues <a href="https://balkin.blogspot.com/2024/03/comstockery-in-court-and-on-campaign.html">here</a>. The full article is available <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4761751">here</a>, at SSRN.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span>-- Karen Tani </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span><br /></span></span></p>Karen Tanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06623782371731996157noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226690016900160196.post-83269114329643980292024-03-18T00:30:00.003-04:002024-03-18T08:28:50.326-04:00JSCH 49:1<p style="text-align: left;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh82yXkyS3mkn6V55TfucBSxttxjQsPbvtb0wg0jnmuSOtjglcycdRam7OqlTr2YKXFmrgoP1sdcDw8K3q35ruWgTpzpUND8SRwEykSL5amIwBKe1zYCv-kkdIgRvrb1Rmfmf9CdH8vdqI72xi4f3qBacHRK1kXIy4Vf5T0bQp73b_B4emdntHhyphenhyphen2GaKe1X/s258/front_cover.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="258" data-original-width="180" height="191" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh82yXkyS3mkn6V55TfucBSxttxjQsPbvtb0wg0jnmuSOtjglcycdRam7OqlTr2YKXFmrgoP1sdcDw8K3q35ruWgTpzpUND8SRwEykSL5amIwBKe1zYCv-kkdIgRvrb1Rmfmf9CdH8vdqI72xi4f3qBacHRK1kXIy4Vf5T0bQp73b_B4emdntHhyphenhyphen2GaKe1X/w133-h191/front_cover.jpg" width="133" /></a></div>The <i>Journal of Supreme Court History</i>, 49:1, has been <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/51825">published</a>. Here is the TOC:<br /><br />Introduction<br />Timothy S. Huebner<br /><br />“This Law, Though Dead, Did Speak”: The Civil Rights Cases and their Unforeseen Aftermath<br />Joseph A. Ranney<br /><br />How to Avoid Dictatorship: The Public Debate Over Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Court-packing Plan and Its International Context<br />Leon Julius Biela<br /><br />Caustic, Comical, Candid, and Insightful Commentary from Chief Justice William Howard Taft, 1921–1929: Excerpts<br />Jonathan Lurie<br /><br />Drew Pearson’s “Predictions”: Assessing the Stone Court’s Press Leaks<br />Abby R. West<br /><br />Two Views on Court-Packing<br />Melvin I. Urofsky<br /><p></p><p>[Professor Urofksy reviews Laura Kalman’s <i>FDR’s Gambit: The Courtpacking Fight and the Rise of Legal Liberalism</i> (Oxford University Press, 2022) and Michael Nelson’s <i>Vaulting Ambition: FDR’s Campaign to Pack the Supreme Court</i> (University Press of Kansas, 2023).]</p><p>--Dan Ernst <br /></p>ernsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785634201759560130noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226690016900160196.post-46004705882626026812024-03-16T00:30:00.126-04:002024-03-16T00:30:00.131-04:00Weekend Roundup<ul style="text-align: left;"><li>We note the passing of the constitutional historian <a href="https://twitter.com/JamesMadisonFdn/status/1768352246847164462"><b>Herman Belz</b></a>, Professor Emeritus in the Department of History at the <b>University of Maryland</b>. <br /></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Eric Foner </b>reviews <b>Dylan C. Penningroth</b>’s <i>Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights</i> (<a href="https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2024/04/04/a-wary-faith-in-the-courts-before-the-movement/">NYRB</a>). <br /></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>New online in the <i>American Journal of Legal History</i>: <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ajlh/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/ajlh/njae002/7625572?redirectedFrom=fulltext"><b></b>Alexander Hamilton's Constitutional Jurisprudence and the Bank Bill</a> by <b>Peter Charles Hoffer</b>.</li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjTGi6hIdNbYWocyaAm1w_IUHKwLvrqhvbi6UaaXtQ4GSxYGOvSFE-Rm-qq0N_6ikP43mzFSh0599iS24rlT56Lra5VNB0cgBoAkZ3OF-ZlX9vj4eNEc6J07bmC4OlrdrjNSEq5XVWbjEUNMHwmYLNeuhUac7V_b9UEOTkgDP1C01341KBvnIe2WNyamKB/s599/service-pnp-cph-3b40000-3b41000-3b41800-3b41804r.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="599" data-original-width="395" height="170" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjTGi6hIdNbYWocyaAm1w_IUHKwLvrqhvbi6UaaXtQ4GSxYGOvSFE-Rm-qq0N_6ikP43mzFSh0599iS24rlT56Lra5VNB0cgBoAkZ3OF-ZlX9vj4eNEc6J07bmC4OlrdrjNSEq5XVWbjEUNMHwmYLNeuhUac7V_b9UEOTkgDP1C01341KBvnIe2WNyamKB/w112-h170/service-pnp-cph-3b40000-3b41000-3b41800-3b41804r.jpg" width="112" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Melville Fuller (<a href="https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/91794581/">LC</a>)</span><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>"On April 11, 2024, at 6:15 pm, the [Supreme Court Historical] Society and Dacor-Bacon House Foundation will co-host a lecture on Chief Justice Melville Fuller with author <b>Douglas Rooks</b>, [who will speak on the <i>Insular Cases</i>.] The event will be held at the historic Dacor-Bacon House in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington, DC. Tickets are $35 to attend in person and $10 to attend virtually." Register <a href="https://mms.dacorbacon.org/Calendar/moreinfo.php?eventid=48400">here</a>. <br /></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Congratulations to <b>Gerard N. Magliocca</b>, the Samuel R. Rosen Professor of Law at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law, <a href="https://today.iu.edu/live/news/4487-3-faculty-named-distinguished-professors">upon his naming </a>as a Distinguished Professor at <b>Indiana University</b>.<b> </b><b> <br /></b></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Brandon Terry</b>, the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University, delivered the inaugural <b><a href="https://lawmagazine.bc.edu/2024/03/catharine-wells-legacy-lives-on-in-lecture-series/">Catharine Wells Memorial Lecture in Jurisprudence</a></b> at the <b>Boston College Law School</b> on February 26. Professor Terry drew upon his book, <i>The Tragic Vision of the Civil Rights Movement: Political Theory and the Historical Imagination.</i></li></ul> <div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>ICYMI: UC Berkeley student brings to light stories of LGBTQ+ Japanese Americans incarcerated during WWII (<a href="https://www.lib.berkeley.edu/about/news/erased">Berkeley Library</a>). Library archives uncover long-lost history of Colorado women dying trying to get an abortion (<a href="https://www.cpr.org/2024/03/07/denver-public-library-history-of-abortion-access-in-colorado/">CPR</a>). “Women’s Work” Powers the Economy—And Has Always Been Undervalued (<a href="https://time.com/6899955/history-equal-pay-day-women-care-work/">Time</a>).<br /></li></ul><p> Weekend Roundup is a weekly feature compiled by all the Legal History bloggers. <br /></p></div>ernsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785634201759560130noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226690016900160196.post-23935613306952363282024-03-15T00:30:00.004-04:002024-03-15T10:35:58.786-04:00CFP: Northwestern Law Review's Empirical Issue<p>[We have the following announcement. DRE]</p><p>The <i>Northwestern University Law Review</i> (<i>NULR</i>) is proud to be opening submissions for the seventh annual empirical issue! <i>NULR</i> is exceptional among flagship law reviews in the United States in that it publishes an annual issue fully dedicated to empirical legal scholarship. We seek to bring cutting-edge, interdisciplinary, empirical work to our legal audience, and enrich our understanding of the law, legal actors, and legal doctrine through robust and reliable examination of qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-method data. Publication at our Journal is especially of interest to authors who would like to benefit from an expedited publication timeline, have their work peer-reviewed from specialists in the field, be supported by a dedicated team of editors who can assist in sharpening the piece’s contribution for the legal audience, and who seek to have their work make impact on legal policy and advocacy in the United States. To provide some examples, we have previously published work evaluating racial bias in police stops, an examination of duplicative proceedings in international litigation, and a field experiment assessing incidence of judicial recusals when potential conflicts of interest come to light. You can find our past empirical issues <a href="https://northwesternlawreview.org/empirical/past-empirical-issues/">here</a>.<br /><br />The exclusive submission window for the Volume 119 Empirical Issue of the <i>Northwestern University Law Review</i> will open on March 18, 2024, and run until April 30, 2024. A subset of submissions will be selected to move forward to peer review. The<i> Law Review</i> will make every effort to notify authors of rejection or of advancement to peer review by mid-July 2024. Final publication decisions will be issued by mid-August 2024, with the publication date set in March 2025.<br /><br />Submitted publications must be between 15,000 and 30,000, and conform generally to the style and formatting expectations that are common to law reviews. For more information, please visit our website: <a href="https://northwesternlawreview.org/submissions/empirical-issue/">Empirical Issue</a> or reach out to Alisher Juzgenbayev, Senior Empirical Editor for the <i>Northwestern University Law Review</i> at alisher.juzgenbayev@law.northwestern.edu.<br /><br />[The editor tells us that “empirical” includes “methodologies employed in legal history, including archival and ethnographic work.”]</p>ernsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785634201759560130noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226690016900160196.post-50406440664062262082024-03-14T00:30:00.004-04:002024-03-14T00:30:00.136-04:00Little on Law Libraries in Early Indiana<p><b>Lee R. Little</b>, Research and Instructional Services Librarian, Ruth Lilly Law Library, <b>Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law</b> has published <a href="file:///C:/Users/danie/Downloads/vol57p97.pdf">Work Hard and Die Poor: The History of Law Libraries in Indiana</a> in the <i>Indiana Law Review</i> 57 (2023): 97-138:</p><p></p><blockquote><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOoO7j-G9JW3hevpvlrSLxaXNpszcARSzjtY89msZzPox05qhX2vQYKV0Kyx6oDnjoUUPmgNJejme6IHWynkIwZjRZpBqFHeOJnTiVjQd6fRwbhL31Xhh2zELRPq0YE-FTQy5b35ZH0NnmNAdAUE0OqxkuVQu5PoTXGmc9z_l7gJMIGgdA5Vne78lHfV1U/s309/Chief_Justice_Isaac_Newton_Blackford_of_the_Indiana_Supreme_Court.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="309" data-original-width="265" height="154" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOoO7j-G9JW3hevpvlrSLxaXNpszcARSzjtY89msZzPox05qhX2vQYKV0Kyx6oDnjoUUPmgNJejme6IHWynkIwZjRZpBqFHeOJnTiVjQd6fRwbhL31Xhh2zELRPq0YE-FTQy5b35ZH0NnmNAdAUE0OqxkuVQu5PoTXGmc9z_l7gJMIGgdA5Vne78lHfV1U/w131-h154/Chief_Justice_Isaac_Newton_Blackford_of_the_Indiana_Supreme_Court.jpg" width="131" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Isaac Blackford (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Blackford#/media/File:Chief_Justice_Isaac_Newton_Blackford_of_the_Indiana_Supreme_Court.jpg">wiki</a>)</span><br /></td></tr></tbody></table> Printed legal materials have been utilized by practitioners since the dawn of the Anglo-European legal system in what is now the United States. When Indiana was opened for settlement, attorneys and judges brought their private libraries to the state. These initial collections were much smaller than the robust and extensive law libraries that existed in the state prior to the advent of digital legal resources. This paper tracks the development of law libraries in Indiana from the territorial period through the present day, along with the social and economic trends that impacted library development.</blockquote><p>--Dan Ernst <br /></p><p></p>ernsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785634201759560130noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226690016900160196.post-39242204068242720712024-03-13T00:30:00.001-04:002024-03-13T00:30:00.131-04:00Smith on History as Precedent<p><b>Michael L. Smith, St. Mary's University School of Law</b>, has posted <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4751819">History as Precedent: Common Law Reasoning in Historical Investigation</a>, which is forthcoming in the <i>University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law</i>:<br /></p><blockquote>The United States Supreme Court frequently looks to history when interpreting the Constitution. On some occasions, it does so to determine the original public meaning of the Constitution’s text. Other times, it looks to historical traditions recognizing or restricting rights. The Court emphasizes the objectivity of these historical methods, contrasting them with alternate approaches the Court casts as dangerously manipulable. But the Court’s resort to history is virtually identical to alternate methodology the Court purports to avoid—namely, reasoning and arguing from precedent. Skilled advocates craft favorable rules from precedent, and portray dubious precedent as controlling and unfavorable precedent as irrelevant. The Court does the same with historical evidence, framing inquiries to all but guarantee favored outcomes. Contrary evidence is minimized or deemed irrelevant under unspoken, malleable standards. In short, the Court treats history as precedent.<br /><br />The Court’s manipulation of history raises profound concerns beyond those typically associated with the manipulation of case law. While precedent may be manipulated, its use is subject to an array of rules and norms, including rules of controlling and persuasive precedential value, recognition of the difference between holdings and dicta, and standards for when precedent may be overruled. Historical evidence lacks these norms. Additionally, most legal actors also lack the expertise, resources, and incentives necessary for rigorous historical analysis, increasing the probability of mistaken conclusions. In the face of these problems, I propose two ways forward. Courts can recognize that they are treating history as precedent and develop rules for the process, including rules for sufficiency of evidence, relevance, and persuasive value. Or courts can instead take history seriously and subject history to more rigorous analysis, using discovery mechanisms, expert testimony and cross-examination, and a recognition of complexity to engage seriously with the history. </blockquote>--Dan Ernst<br /><p></p>ernsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785634201759560130noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226690016900160196.post-19381215878064861992024-03-12T00:30:00.001-04:002024-03-12T00:30:00.139-04:00Reconstruction in Constitutional History, Law, and Politics<p>[We have the following announcement. DRE]</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrzcWSSfTCb7zl22xCITKCLWhnkzNMrmYz55pguO5jdJRu1Ertftl6i9etHUWzIaekcoYAA6fU2f4yehz7DEeHtAPVUddE_5CSD3pAWWswx604gZg-xKT1Mnbb5RcZkFA6Qbjy3GQYrxu6cK72mBfj2q7C8OabbI9NhKgkM8OEwhIU43WVNsQtM6LdKTvE/s276/Untitled.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="276" data-original-width="183" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrzcWSSfTCb7zl22xCITKCLWhnkzNMrmYz55pguO5jdJRu1Ertftl6i9etHUWzIaekcoYAA6fU2f4yehz7DEeHtAPVUddE_5CSD3pAWWswx604gZg-xKT1Mnbb5RcZkFA6Qbjy3GQYrxu6cK72mBfj2q7C8OabbI9NhKgkM8OEwhIU43WVNsQtM6LdKTvE/w139-h209/Untitled.jpg" width="139" /></a></div>In conjunction with the George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center at Penn State and the <i>Journal of American Constitutional History</i>, <b>Tulane Law School</b> will host the conference “The Significance of Reconstruction in Constitutional History, Law, and Politics” [on Friday and Saturday, March 15 and 16]. It draws more than a dozen nationally-recognized constitutional law scholars and commentators, among them Mark Graber (Maryland), Randall Kennedy (Harvard), Jack Balkin (Yale), Reva Siegel (Yale), Sanford Levinson (Texas), Anne Twitty (Stanford), Farah Peterson (Chicago), and Jamelle Bouie (<i>The New York Times</i>). Tulane Law Professors Robert Westley and Evelyn Atkinson also will be participating. View the conference schedule <a href="https://law.tulane.edu/sites/default/files/Second%20Founding%20Conference%20Program%20PDF.pdf">here</a>.<br /><br />The conference will feature an interdisciplinary group of the leading scholars on American constitutionalism during Reconstruction who will examine how the post-Civil War Amendments should be understood from historical, political science, and legal perspectives. The purpose of the two-day, five-panel conference is to explore how Republican framers were trying to resolve what they perceived to be the most pressing constitutional problems of the 1860s with the conceptual and political tools available at the time, and what citizens in 2024 should make of their efforts. The conference is occasioned by the publication of Professor <b>Mark Graber</b>’s book <a href="https://kansaspress.ku.edu/9780700635030/"><i>Punish Treason, Reward Loyalty: The Forgotten Goals of Constitutional Reform after the Civil War</i></a> (University Press of Kansas, 2023). The papers from the conference will be published by the <i>Journal of American Constitutional History.<br /></i><br />The event will be held in Room 110 of Tulane Law School, John Giffen Weinmann Hall, 6329 Freret Street from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Friday and 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday.<p></p>ernsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785634201759560130noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226690016900160196.post-62317615895773888082024-03-11T00:30:00.002-04:002024-03-11T00:30:00.153-04:00CFP: Grotian Law and Modernity at the Dawn of a New Age<p>[We have the following CFP. DRE]</p><p>Grotian Law and Modernity at the Dawn of a New Age: 400 Years of <i>De jure belli ac pacis</i>, 1625-2025<br />International Conference, 19-20 June 2025, Leiden University Wijnhaven Campus, The Hague<br /><br />On the occasion of the 400th anniversary of the first publication of <i>De jure belli ac pacis</i> by Hugo Grotius in 1625, an international conference will be organized by the Grotiana Foundation, the Paul Scholten Centre for Jurisprudence at the University of Amsterdam, the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies at the University of Leiden and the Department of Public Law and Governance at Tilburg University.<br /><br />The major aim of the conference is to foster new narratives on the thought of Grotius, in general legal theory as well as in international law against a the backdrop of present-day rapid, fundamental changes that challenge the very foundations of the modernist paradigm, of which Grotius may be considered a key trailblazer. The core question of the academic conference is to what extent Grotian thought about general legal theory and international law is still relevant today, and what adaptations current foundational changes to our world make necessary. In this context, discussion of the many trajectories of reception, appropriation and reinterpretation of Grotius in different times and places, offers a valuable, additional perspective. <br /><br />The organizers invite twelve speakers for each of the three thematic parts of the conference. Candidates are requested to send in an abstract of 250-400 words and short c.v. of max. 100 words to the general convener, Randall Lesaffer (lesaffer@tilburguniversity.edu) by <b>1 May 2024</b>. Please mention your affiliation and indicate a preference for one of the three conference themes.<br /><br />Part I ‘Lineages of Grotian Thought’<br />Convener: Mark Somos<br />Keynote speaker: Martine van Ittersum<br /><br />Part II ‘Modernity and the dawn of a new age: general theory of law and<br />governance’<br />Convener: Marc de Wilde<br />Keynote speaker: Annabel Brett<br /><br />Part III ‘Modernity and the dawn of a new age: international law and governance’<br />Convener: Eric De Brabandere<br />Keynote speaker: Hilary Charlesworth<br /><br />Speakers are expected to turn in a draft paper before 1 June 2025. Papers will be distributed to the participants in advance of the conference. Those papers which pass peer review will be published in both the journal <i>Grotiana</i> (New Series) as well as collected in a separate book with Brill. More information <a href="https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/news/2023/04/call-for-papers---grotian-law-and-modernity-at-the-dawn-of-a-new-age">here</a>.</p>ernsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785634201759560130noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226690016900160196.post-54465094797787832922024-03-09T00:30:00.071-05:002024-03-09T00:30:00.140-05:00Weekend Roundup<ul style="text-align: left;"><li>A symposium on <b>Natasha Wheatley</b>’s <i>The Life and Death of States: Central Europe and the Transformation of Modern Sovereignty</i> has been <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01916599.2024.2322848">published</a> in the journal <i>History of European Ideas</i>. <br /></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdhfgHAUvS8KRxkZs8isQEExLbUyAStdMLEfRaAOoL4AO15sCLiua_TMFkvQFBa1O1A319-QpamxJlUKnem0m7z-BcvqIrtK9tzcaxj6WIaQkbhS0SYdJW4F1Pgs_TaNr85DgB4ds3L5hmFauT-My1WN1gZQJWRmbjaRv6-m9ipW-Y79zom6xdlP852Idj/s425/unnamed.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="425" data-original-width="279" height="175" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdhfgHAUvS8KRxkZs8isQEExLbUyAStdMLEfRaAOoL4AO15sCLiua_TMFkvQFBa1O1A319-QpamxJlUKnem0m7z-BcvqIrtK9tzcaxj6WIaQkbhS0SYdJW4F1Pgs_TaNr85DgB4ds3L5hmFauT-My1WN1gZQJWRmbjaRv6-m9ipW-Y79zom6xdlP852Idj/w115-h175/unnamed.jpg" width="115" /></a></div>On May 1, at the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court Historical Society and George Washington’s Mount Vernon will sponsor a lecture by <b>Gerard Magliocca</b> on his book, <i>Washington's Heir: The Life of Bushrod Washington</i>. (The second lecture in this series will occur on October 8 in Mount Vernon when Lindsay M. Chervinsky speaks on her book <i>Making the Presidency: John Adams and the Precedents that Forged a Republic</i>. Register <a href="https://www.mountvernon.org/plan-your-visit/calendar/events/supreme-court-lecture-series-washington-s-heir/">here</a>.<br /></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>The latest episode of the <b>American Law Institute</b>’s podcast is <a href="https://www.ali.org/news/podcast/episode/exploring-alis-history-and-influence/">Exploring ALI's History and Influence</a>. <b>Andrew Gold</b>, an editor of the recently published<a href="https://legalhistoryblog.blogspot.com/2023/05/ali-centennial-history.html"> centennial history</a> of the ALI, joins <b>Deborah A. DeMott</b> (Reporter for Restatement of the Law Third, Agency), <b>John C.P. Goldberg</b> (Associate Reporter for Restatement the Law Fourth, Property), and <b>Erin E. Murphy</b> (Associate Reporter for Model Penal Code: Sexual Assault and Related Offenses). </li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>From the <i>New York Times</i>: <b>Mary Ziegler </b>(UC Davis) appeared on the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/08/podcasts/transcript-ezra-klein-interviews-mary-ziegler.html">Ezra Klein Show</a>. <br /></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://academic.oup.com/ojls/advance-article/doi/10.1093/ojls/gqae007/7619084">Partisan Legal Traditions in the Age of Camden and Mansfield</a>, by <b>T. T. Arvind, York Law School, </b>and <b>Christian R. Burset, Notre Dame Law School</b>, which we noted earlier when it went up on SSRN, has now been published open-access in the <i>Oxford Journal of Legal Studies</i>. <br /></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Miami Law</b> <a href="https://news.miami.edu/law/stories/2024/03/kunal-parker-gives-several-talks.html">notes</a> <b>Kunal Parker</b>’s appearance on a panel at on the Civil War and Immigration at HistoryMiami Museum and in a seminar of “Deported Americans” at the Massachusetts Historical Society. <br /></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>From In Custodia Legis: Federal Holidays and Observances, <a href="https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2024/03/a-cause-for-celebration-federal-holidays-and-observances-part-1/">Part I</a> and <a href="https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2024/03/a-cause-for-celebration-federal-holidays-and-observances-part-2/">Part II</a>. </li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>ICYMI: New York courts have a long progressive history, says <b>Bruce W. Dearstyne</b> (<a href="https://www.timesunion.com/opinion/article/commentary-new-york-courts-long-progressive-18698349.php">Times Union</a>). <b>Sumita Mukherje </b>on Race, Empire and Women’s Suffrage (<a href="https://www.historytoday.com/archive/feature/sisters-arms-race-empire-and-womens-suffrage">History Today</a>).<br /></li></ul>Weekend Roundup is a weekly feature compiled by all the Legal History bloggers. <br />ernsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785634201759560130noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226690016900160196.post-37204490615993779642024-03-08T00:30:00.002-05:002024-03-08T00:30:00.128-05:00AJLH: 63:4<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfMJLUd_cAqfTCzldkEE4tpE2WDjbLpW_HOy-8QvaLZAAxdlagWk-ftUQnixoYiniUJcCQn8AAkvLVN3fSbOKkGndK7UAWSyAD9kUrye4_WbMTiVh1-MmsEM6rCT3wIJMLdVcT74TePVFGX6Wln9lbmCi1iu-6HjGio8i3WGwbXQt3wZ_TVjRyVgIYzkFn/s780/m_ajlh_63_4cover.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="780" data-original-width="520" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfMJLUd_cAqfTCzldkEE4tpE2WDjbLpW_HOy-8QvaLZAAxdlagWk-ftUQnixoYiniUJcCQn8AAkvLVN3fSbOKkGndK7UAWSyAD9kUrye4_WbMTiVh1-MmsEM6rCT3wIJMLdVcT74TePVFGX6Wln9lbmCi1iu-6HjGio8i3WGwbXQt3wZ_TVjRyVgIYzkFn/w118-h178/m_ajlh_63_4cover.jpeg" width="118" /></a></div>The <i>American Journal of Legal History</i> 63:4 (December 2023) has now been <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ajlh/issue/63/4">published online</a>. Here's the TOC:<br /><br />The Abolition of the Right to Trial by Jury in Civil Cases in England<br />Charles S Bullock<br /><br />Brave New World? Care and Custody of Children at the Court for Divorce and Matrimonial Causes in Mid-Victorian England<br />Penelope Russell<br /><br />Banking Law in Italian Legal Consulting between the Fourteenth and the Fifteenth Centuries<br />Mario Conetti<br /><br /><i>In forma pauperis</i>: Indentured Servitude, the Right to Counsel, and White Citizenship in the Seventeenth-Century Chesapeake<br />Anna Suranyi<br /><br />Justice Kennedy’s Jurisprudence of Dignity: From Sovereign Immunity to Gay Rights<br />Eric J Scarffe<br /><br />Hoist by the Colonizer’s Own Device? Law Reporting in Mandatory Palestine<br />Yair Sagy and Eyal Katvan<br /><br />International Legacies of a Century and a Half of the Case Method<br />Han-Ru Zhou<p></p><p>--Dan Ernst<br /></p>ernsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785634201759560130noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226690016900160196.post-44648416322545025512024-03-07T00:30:00.000-05:002024-03-07T00:30:00.137-05:00Del Mar on Character, Intellectual Historiography, and Neil MacCormick<p><b>Maksymilian Del Mar, Queen Mary University of London</b>, will address the Helsinki Legal History Series on Monday 29 April 2024, 15-16:30 (UTC+2) in the Porthania Building, Room P545, University of Helsinki and on Zoom (Link to be published later). His lecture is entitled, <a href="https://www.helsinki.fi/en/researchgroups/law-identity-and-the-european-narratives/news-and-events/helsinki-legal-history-series-maksymilian-del-mar-29042024">Beyond Belief and Deeper than Argument: Character and Intellectual Historiography</a>:<br /></p><blockquote>This talk explores the value of character for writing intellectual history, and in particular the history of philosophy and politics. The talk first considers the long and rich history of character - especially character writing in the rhetorical tradition - before suggesting what we might take from that history for historicising philosophy and politics. Character, on the model developed here, is a relational phenomenon: it consists in the manner or style with which a person relates with others in certain circumstances and over time. The talk illustrates this character-based intellectual historiography by showing how it can illuminate the philosophical and political life of Neil MacCormick, but also how it allows us to convey the complexity, richness, and value of the activities of philosophy and politics.</blockquote><p></p><p>--Dan Ernst<br /></p>ernsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785634201759560130noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226690016900160196.post-49048455886489729742024-03-06T00:30:00.000-05:002024-03-06T00:30:00.130-05:00Schweber on Madison and Religious Liberty<p><b>Howard Schweber, University of Wisconsin-Madison</b>, has posted <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4715606">"Pray Liberty of Conscience to Revive Us": James Madison's Understanding of Religious Liberty in the US Constitution</a>:<br /></p><blockquote>Religious liberty was one of the centrally motivating concerns and one of the central models for Madison’s thinking about the Constitution. But opposing the imprisonment of Baptists in Virginia was the simplest possible starting point. What, in Madison's mind, should America’s Constitution say (and mean) about the relationship between religion/church and politics/the state writ large? Freedom to engage in worship might be a clear requirement, but how far should that freedom extend? To explore these questions, this paper is divided into four sections: (1) Madison’s view of religion generally; (2) Madison’s view of the Establishment Clause in relation to public support for religious actors and institutions; (3) Madison’s treatment of free exercise and the question of exemptions;; and (4) Madison’s view of the Establishment Clause with respect to what Justice O’Connor called the “endorsement” problem. Across all categories, the key driving concept in Madison's thought is that religion is a special case: specially precious and specially dangerous both, and therefore to be treated differently from other topics such as general principles of liberty of conscience. In the conclusion, I engage in speculating about what Madison would have thought of some recent developments in First Amendment religion clauses in light of his thinking on the subject. </blockquote>-- Dan Ernst<br /><p></p>ernsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785634201759560130noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226690016900160196.post-22019169810042737182024-03-05T09:30:00.001-05:002024-03-05T09:30:00.252-05:00Wurman on the Opinions Clause and Presidential Power<p><b>Ilan Wurman, Arizona State University Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law</b>, has posted <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4746585">The Opinions Clause and Presidential Power</a>:<br /></p><blockquote>The two predominant conceptions of executive power and supervision over the administrative state are inadequate. One maintains that all administrative discretion is the President’s, and that by virtue of the grant of executive power the President can both remove and control the discretion of all subordinate officers. That raises the specter of an imperial presidency, and a textual problem: it makes superfluous the Opinions Clause, which empowers the President to require principal officers to provide written opinions about their respective duties. The other maintains that the President is, at best, a “persuader-in-chief,” with no constitutional right to control administrative discretion or to remove officers tasked with implementing statutory duties. Although this view makes sense of the Opinions Clause, there is no historical evidence for it. The proponents of these two schools of thought have thus been locked in a decades-long stalemate, with competing and irreconcilable paradigms of total control or no control.<br /><br />This paper recovers another, lost way of thinking about presidential power, one that is more modest than either of the two prevailing understandings and that has the potential to advance the debate. According to this conception, Congress can insulate inferior officers from removal because they must follow orders. As for principal officers, however, the President can remove but not control them, at least not directly. There is no constitutional obligation on the part of principal officers to obey; the only inducement is the threat of removal. The Opinions Clause, far from being superfluous, then assures the President the power to acquire information to intelligently exercise the power to remove. In addition to this account’s textual and structural virtues, it appears to have been the understanding of presidential power shared by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, William Wirt, Daniel Webster, William Howard Taft, and the First Congress.<br /><br />This understanding of executive power may seem overly formalistic, but it allows for the existence of agencies whose heads are removable but nevertheless bound by law to exercise independently the discretion Congress has given them, and for the insulation of civil servants and adjudicators subject however to the ultimate control of the heads of department. In other words, it allows for an independent administrative apparatus but over which the President has an important check. It also suggests a modest resolution to <i>SEC v. Jarkesy</i>, the blockbuster case before the Supreme Court this term. </blockquote>--Dan Ernst<br /><p></p>ernsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785634201759560130noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226690016900160196.post-38562340401263547382024-03-05T00:30:00.001-05:002024-03-05T00:30:00.136-05:00Roberts on the Concept of Forced Labor<p><b>Christopher M. Roberts, Chinese University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law</b>, has posted <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4742417">The Historical Development of the Concept of Forced Labor and the Open Boundaries of its Definition Today</a>, which appears in the <i>New Mexico Law Review</i>:<br /></p><blockquote>This article considers the steps taken on the international level in the 1920s and 30s to define the terms through which freedom and unfreedom in the context of labor might be understood, the manner in which understandings of forced labor have subsequently evolved, and the parameters and potentials of the concept today. The first section explores the history of the 1926 Slavery Convention; the nature of coercive labor in colonized states in the inter-war period; the drafting processes and coverage of the 1930 Forced Labour Convention; the Convention’s accompanying recommendations; and subsequent developments in the legal definition of forced labor. The second section considers various different areas in which the boundaries of the concept of forced labor are open-ended today, with an eye to determining whether the concept is capable of addressing hitherto under-recognized forms of labor coercion, or whether it is fatally limited by the conditions of its formation. In particular, the section considers areas of explicit limitation; the potential contained within the terms of the Forced Labour (Indirect Compulsion) Recommendation; and what potential there is for forced labor to be deployed relative to an issue not intensively addressed in 1930, that of debt. This article concludes that, despite the limitations that have accompanied the idea of forced labor to date, the concept remains a useful one, the boundaries of which maintain extensive space for expansion. </blockquote>--Dan Ernst<br /><p></p>ernsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785634201759560130noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226690016900160196.post-88242574225458960092024-03-04T09:30:00.001-05:002024-03-04T09:30:00.133-05:00Kessler on Law and Historical Materialism<p><b>Jeremy Kessler, Columbia University Law Schoo</b>l, has posted <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4745408">Law and Historical Materialism</a>, which is forthcoming in the <i>Duke Law Journal</i><br /></p><blockquote>Since the financial crisis of 2008, left-leaning legal thought has experienced a renaissance within the American academy. From “law and political economy” to critical race theory to feminist legal studies to neo-Marxist legal theory, new perspectives have flourished and marginalized traditions have been revived. What they all share, however, is a point of intellectual origin in the critical legal studies (“CLS”) movement of the late 1970s and 1980s. That movement’s critique was focused on functional accounts of law: accounts that understood legal change as primarily responsive to the demands of extra-legal social and economic forces. Some of those accounts, such as that of the law and society school, were associated with the political center. But others, most especially historical materialism, hailed from the political left. For CLS and its successors, the failure of historical materialism to account for the indeterminacy of law, the contingency of legal development, and the autonomous causal power of law and legal actors to shape society was (and remains) disqualifying. This Article argues that CLS erred, and that its successors continue to err, in sidelining historical materialism as a viable framework for left-leaning legal thought. The historical materialist account of law has the resources to make sense of the apparent indeterminacy, contingency, and autonomy of law and legal actors at least as well as CLS and its successors. It can also make better sense of three additional phenomena with which CLS and its successors have struggled: the tendency of legal development to reproduce existing social and economic hierarchies; the relationship between law and capitalism; and the relationship between law and the natural world. </blockquote>--Dan Ernst<br /><p></p>ernsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785634201759560130noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226690016900160196.post-14161769243749472012024-03-04T00:30:00.003-05:002024-03-04T00:30:00.136-05:00ASLH Early Career (Virtual) Legal History Workshop<p>We have the following announcement from the <b>American Society for Legal History</b>: <br /></p><div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p><strong></strong></p><blockquote><p><strong>ASLH Early Career (Virtual) Legal History Workshop</strong></p><p><strong>Deadline for Applications: June 30, 2024</strong> <br /></p></blockquote><blockquote><p>The
American Society for Legal History (ASLH) is delighted to announce a
new virtual initiative – the Early Career (Virtual) Legal History
Workshop – designed to provide support and intellectual community to
early career scholars working in legal history, broadly defined. <br /> <br />Applications
are invited from early career, pre-tenure scholars, publishing in
English, who have completed PhDs or JDs (those working toward a JD/PhD
must have completed the PhD). Scholars with expertise in all
chronological periods and geographical fields are encouraged to apply,
as are scholars who may not (yet) identify as legal historians. Though
time zones present a challenge, one of the goals of the ASLH’s virtual
initiatives is to increase opportunities for engagement between
international and U. S. based scholars. With this in mind, we encourage
international scholars to apply.<br /> <br />The committee (the ASLH
Working Group for Virtual Initiatives) will select seven (7) Fellows for
the 2024-25 workshop. The workshop will be limited to the Fellows and
Faculty Chairs and will meet once monthly via Zoom from September
through April (no meeting in October because of the Annual Meeting)
giving each fellow an opportunity to share work-in-progress with the
group for discussion and feedback. The 2024-25 Early Career LHW will be
chaired by Bhavani Raman, Associate Professor of History, University of
Toronto, and Dan Sharfstein, Dick and Martha Lansden Chair in Law and
Professor of History, Vanderbilt University. The date and time of the
monthly workshops will be established by the Faculty Chairs. Fellows
must commit to participate for the full academic year.<br /> <br /><strong>Elements of Application</strong><br />(1)
Cover Letter (1 page) (the cover letter should address the following
points: briefly describe your research and path to the project, note the
intended result (book/article/other) and the stage of the project,
explain your interest in being part of the 2024-25 workshop, and note
your time zone (UTC) and range of flexibility for meeting);<br />(2) <em>Curriculum Vitae</em>
(2 pages) (including education and degree dates, current appointment,
publications and conference papers, and professional society
affiliations);<br />(3) Proposed Paper Title and Abstract (up to 100 words);<br />(4)
1 Letter of Recommendation (the letter should be from someone who knows
you and your work well and who can comment on how you would benefit
from and contribute to the workshop community).<br /> <br />Applicants should submit items 1-3 in a single pdf. And arrange to have the letter of recommendation submitted directly. <br /> <br />All application materials should be sent to Barbara Welke, <a href="mailto:welke004@umn.edu"><u>welke004@umn.edu</u></a>. <br />The deadline for applications is <strong>June 30, 2024</strong>. Only complete applications will be considered.<br /> <br />Questions? Write to Barbara Welke <a href="mailto:welke004@umn.edu"><u>welke004@umn.edu</u></a></p></blockquote><p><a href="mailto:welke004@umn.edu"><u></u></a></p><p>-- Karen Tani<br /></p></div>Karen Tanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06623782371731996157noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226690016900160196.post-50200710014352439922024-03-02T00:30:00.198-05:002024-03-02T15:40:00.350-05:00Weekend Roundup<p></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Christian R. Burset</b> discusses his book, <i>An Empire of Laws: Legal Pluralism in British Colonial Policy</i> in <a href="https://newbooksnetwork.com/an-empire-of-laws">a New Books Network podcast</a>. <b>Taisu Zhang</b> reviews <b>Professor Burset's </b>article, "Redefining the Rule of Law: An Eighteenth-Century Case Study," on <a href="https://legalhist.jotwell.com/empire-of-the-rule-of-law/">Jotwell</a>. <br /></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>On April 5, 2024, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University will bring together an interdisciplinary group of scholars and experts for the symposium <a href="https://knightcolumbia.org/events/permission-to-speak-freely-managing-government-employee-speech-in-a-democracy">Permission to Speak Freely? Managing Government Employee Speech in a Democracy</a>, including the historians <b>Sam Lebovic</b>, <b>Sarah Milov</b>, <b>David Rabban</b>, and <b>Ellen Schrecker</b>.</li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>At Balkinization, <b>Tom Ginsburg</b> on <b>"<a href="https://balkin.blogspot.com/2024/03/ida-b-wells-plea-for-law-and-society.html">Ida B. Wells: A Plea for Law and Society Canonization</a>." </b> </li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Colorado Law</b> has published a profile of the legal historian <b>Jonathon Booth</b> (<a href="https://www.colorado.edu/law/2024/02/26/getting-know-prof-jonathon-booth">Colorado Law</a>).<b><br /></b></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>The editors of <i>European Journal of International Law</i> have published <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ejil/advance-article/doi/10.1093/ejil/chae001/7615425?searchresult=1#441727033">Looking at Portraits</a> by late <b>Karen Kopp</b>, holder of the Cecil A. Wright Chair at the <b>University of Toronto</b>. Professor Kopp died before she completed a different Foreword for<i> EJIL</i>, and the editors have published this essay instead, which appeared in a collection edited by Immi Tallgren, <i><a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/portraits-of-women-in-international-law-9780198868453">Portraits of Women in International Law: New Names and Forgotten Faces?</a></i> (2023). <br /></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>The result of the latest election of the <b>Organization of American Historians</b> is in. Congratulations to President-Elect <b>Annette Gordon-Reed</b> and Vice President <b>Marc Stein</b>. </li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Sara Mayeux,</b><b>Vanderbilt University</b>, appeared in the NPR podcast series Throughline on <a href="https://www.npr.org/2024/02/29/1198908562/throughline-the-right-to-an-attorney">The Right to An Attorney</a>.<br /></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Ray Brescia, Albany Law School</b>, discusses his new book, <i>Lawyer Nation: The Past, Present, and Future of the American Legal Profession</i>, on the <i>ABA Journal</i>’s <a href="https://legaltalknetwork.com/podcasts/aba-journal-modern-law-library/2024/02/ny-law-prof-is-calling-on-lawyer-nation-to-reform/">Modern Law Library podcast</a>.<br /></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Women’s Rights & Citizenship: A History of Women Jurors, by <b>Helen Allen Nerska</b> (<a href="https://www.newyorkalmanack.com/2024/02/womens-rights-women-jurors/">New York Almanack</a>). <br /></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>“The latest episode of the A Minute In New York History podcast tells the story of the 1839 La Amistad Rebellion” with the help of <b>Marcus Rediker</b> (<a href="https://www.newyorkalmanack.com/2024/02/amistad-rebellion-atlantic-slavery/">New York Almanack</a>).</li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>From the Law & Political Economy Blog: <b>Etienne C. Toussaint</b>, "<a href="https://lpeproject.org/blog/abolitionism-as-a-question-of-citizenship/">Abolitionism as a Question of Citizenship</a>."<br /></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Paola Zichi</b>, British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the <b>Warwick Law School</b>, present on feminism and “the so-called ‘historical turn’ in international law” in the Law and Methods Seminar at SciencesPo Law School last Thursday. <a href="https://www.sciencespo.fr/ecole-droit/en/events/law-and-methods-spring-2024-4th-session/">More</a>. <br /></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>ICYMI: Black family history and Civil War pension records (<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/29/opinion/black-family-history-genealogy.html ">NYT</a>). "Tradition" is "too amorphous and manipulable a criterion” for constitutional adjudication, a federal judge argues (<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/26/us/supreme-court-originalism-tradition-conservative.html">NYT</a>). <b>John A. Lupton,</b> Illinois Supreme Court Historic Preservation Commission, on Myra Bradwell (<a href="https://www.illinoiscourts.gov/News/1331/Illinois-Supreme-Court-history-Myra-Bradwell/news-detail/">Illinois Courts</a>).<br /></li></ul><p>Weekend Roundup is a weekly feature compiled by all the Legal History bloggers. <br /></p>ernsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785634201759560130noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226690016900160196.post-37707545366896072602024-03-01T00:30:00.001-05:002024-03-01T00:30:00.131-05:00Boyer and Nicholls's "Rise and Fall of Treason in English History"<p><b>Allen Boyer</b>, formerly senior appellate counsel at the New York Stock Exchange Enforcement Division and the author of <i>Sir Edward Coke and the Elizabethan Age</i> (Stanford University Press) and Mark Nicholls, a Fellow of St. John’s College, Cambridge, have published <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Rise-and-Fall-of-Treason-in-English-History/Boyer-Nicholls/p/book/9780367509934"><i>The Rise and Fall of Treason in English History</i></a> (Routledge):</p><p></p><blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkLMs74J1ptHld1X0y000xizMSB8od38NvqqeeBEgKUmv5AZ9YJW7hodVvk2ytxwBK7s0a12XoDsW405s4_PS85Rvzxxcr3I5YGUjcsEomUyD-DVMKaOFkBi_XWODcX5BBy9FMKL-c88bBWdENHJeUCIaULGgtMfsLz6CYY-hjOx5YxEYViRdp9uJUK6cV/s277/9780367509934.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="277" data-original-width="180" height="277" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkLMs74J1ptHld1X0y000xizMSB8od38NvqqeeBEgKUmv5AZ9YJW7hodVvk2ytxwBK7s0a12XoDsW405s4_PS85Rvzxxcr3I5YGUjcsEomUyD-DVMKaOFkBi_XWODcX5BBy9FMKL-c88bBWdENHJeUCIaULGgtMfsLz6CYY-hjOx5YxEYViRdp9uJUK6cV/s1600/9780367509934.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>This book explores the development and application of the law of treason in England across more than a thousand years, placing this legal history within a broader historical context.<br /><br />Describing many high-profile prosecutions and trials, the book focuses on the statutes, ordinances and customs that have at various times governed, limited and shaped this worst of crimes. It explores the reasons why treason coalesced around specific offences agreed by both the monarch and the wider political nation, why it became an essential instrument of enforcement in high politics, and why, over the past three hundred years, it has gradually fallen into disuse while remaining on the statute book. This book also considers why treason as both a word and a concept remains so potent in wider modern culture, investigating prevalent current misconceptions about what is and what is not treason. It concludes by suggesting that the abolition or 'death' of treason in the near future, while a logical next step, is by no means a foregone conclusion.<br /><br /><i>The Rise and Fall of Treason in English History</i> is a thorough academic introduction for scholars and history students, as well as general readers with an interest in British political and legal history.</blockquote>--Dan Ernst<br /><p></p>ernsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785634201759560130noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226690016900160196.post-82675478500795107232024-02-29T09:30:00.000-05:002024-02-29T09:30:00.136-05:00Rose on Property in the Merchant of Venice<p><b>Carol M. Rose, University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law</b>, has posted <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4698602">Property and Literature: the View From Shakespeare’s Venice</a>, which is forthcoming in <i>The Elgar Concise Encyclopedia of Law and Literature,</i> ed. Robert Spoo and Simon Stern (2024).<br /></p><blockquote><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqrbV46dqNfDG7J8I_wSsrF5Y9pMb459vLc1Jgbd9WcShlpjshzBcQrLKKceS5HyxM4Jjnwb0HQvApnJkmqEGf73l6Y_YjKgjiDQCBwA-H-83vPV7ijUx-1C_VjdBAizpasz9x3Cr-AK6sZamBR1qlhF2cTe-CGv6LDXNP-lzI5wW1e2wwywg6hxwIpYKL/s676/index.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="459" data-original-width="676" height="170" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqrbV46dqNfDG7J8I_wSsrF5Y9pMb459vLc1Jgbd9WcShlpjshzBcQrLKKceS5HyxM4Jjnwb0HQvApnJkmqEGf73l6Y_YjKgjiDQCBwA-H-83vPV7ijUx-1C_VjdBAizpasz9x3Cr-AK6sZamBR1qlhF2cTe-CGv6LDXNP-lzI5wW1e2wwywg6hxwIpYKL/w251-h170/index.jpg" width="251" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Merchant of Venice (1955) (<a href="https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47de-9653-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99">NYPL</a>)</span><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>This entry explores property issues in The Merchant of Venice, and in particular the Merchant’s posture toward important claims that have been made for property since the Enlightenment: that secure property enhances social wealth, that property protects individual autonomy, and that property permits the projection of personal projects in the world. The conclusion is that Merchant critiques each from the perspective of considerably older views of the role of property in society. The entry also discusses another claim for property and commerce that some have found in Merchant—that property and commerce soften manners and promote cooperation--but concludes that Merchant does not address that claim despite its setting in the then highly commercial city of Venice. </blockquote>--Dan Ernst<br /><p></p>ernsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785634201759560130noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226690016900160196.post-82076218993972965802024-02-29T00:30:00.007-05:002024-02-29T00:30:00.133-05:00Bloch, "Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (2023) and the Memory Wars"<p><b>Ofra Bloch </b>(Tel Aviv University - Buchmann Faculty of Law) has posted "<b><a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4742160">Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (2023) and the Memory Wars</a></b>." Here's the abstract:</p><p></p><blockquote>This article adds to the growing body of scholarship addressing the
aftermath of the Supreme Court's decision in Students for Fair
Admissions v Harvard (SFFA) that effectively ended race-conscious
affirmative action in college admissions as we know it. In contrast to
this literature dedicated primarily to exploring the practical
implications of the decision, the distinct focus of this Article is on
the historical narrative constructed by the SFFA’s majority and its
impact on the constitutional memory of race and racism. The article
makes three key contributions: Firstly, it demonstrates how the SFFA
majority opinion distorts collective recollections of racism, akin to
bans on Critical Race Theory, undermining racial redress legitimacy.
Secondly, it analyzes the amicus curiae briefs in SFFA to uncover how
universities and other proponents of affirmative action participated in
forming the ahistorical narrative that was ultimately adopted and
applied by the SFFA majority. Finally, the article proposes strategies
for reshaping collective memories at the grassroots level. Somewhat
paradoxically, I argue that the current composition of the Court
presents an auspicious opportunity to prioritize reclaiming diversity in
ways that reflect past and present racial experiences in America,
rather than solely focusing on strategies aimed at appealing to
conservative justices. </blockquote><p></p><p>The full paper is available <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4742160">here</a>.</p><p>-- Karen Tani<br /></p>Karen Tanihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06623782371731996157noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226690016900160196.post-77256720442011308162024-02-28T09:30:00.001-05:002024-02-28T09:30:00.134-05:00Morris L. Cohen Student Essay Competition<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDicks689bhGeS7YNqyrRanh700lCyqZ-TnsjR06604crumEgnvNN5Y2xz_wLBY8GJGaPNwcxcIvc5_m28WxNl7vfyu1FLYJcwGlRGOoNcAoL2SGIgoWaEOF_zK6kSSqjtwfN0426COVgkSU-Z_NLzYsEbygx0PdwHR6MVEVvJNHawwsZp6KU-Pl0IE79C/s305/Unbound.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="305" data-original-width="233" height="247" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDicks689bhGeS7YNqyrRanh700lCyqZ-TnsjR06604crumEgnvNN5Y2xz_wLBY8GJGaPNwcxcIvc5_m28WxNl7vfyu1FLYJcwGlRGOoNcAoL2SGIgoWaEOF_zK6kSSqjtwfN0426COVgkSU-Z_NLzYsEbygx0PdwHR6MVEVvJNHawwsZp6KU-Pl0IE79C/w189-h247/Unbound.jpg" width="189" /></a></div> [We have the following announcement. DRE]<br /><br />The<b> Legal History and Rare Books (LH&RB) Section</b> of the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL), in cooperation with The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd., announces the Fourteenth Annual Morris L. Cohen Student Essay Competition. The competition is named in honor of Morris L. Cohen, late Professor Emeritus of Law at Yale Law School.<br /><br />The competition is designed to encourage scholarship and to acquaint students with the AALL and law librarianship, and is open to students currently enrolled in accredited graduate programs in library science, law, history, and related fields. Essays may be on any topic related to legal history, rare law books, or legal archives. The winner will receive a $1,000.00 prize from The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd., and will be invited to present their paper to AALL members via webinar.<br /><br />Winning and runner-up entries will be invited to submit their entries to <i>UNBOUND: A Review of Legal History and Rare Books</i>, the official journal of LH&RB. Past winning essays have gone on to be accepted by journals such as <i>N.Y.U. Law Review, American Journal of Legal History, University of South Florida Law Review, William & Mary Journal of Women and the Law, the Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities</i>, and <i>French Historical Review</i>.<br /><br />The entry form and instructions are available at <a href="https://www.aallnet.org/lhrbsis/awards-grants/">the LH&RB website</a>. Entries must be submitted by 11:59 p.m., May 15, 2024 (EDT).<br /><br />Please direct questions to Linda K. Tesar, Chair, Morris L. Cohen Student Essay Competition Committee, lktesar@wm.edu.<p></p>ernsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785634201759560130noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226690016900160196.post-84254396028917244462024-02-28T00:30:00.001-05:002024-02-28T00:30:00.134-05:00Balkin's "Memory and Authority"<p></p><p>Jack M. Balkin, Yale Law School, has published <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Memory-Authority-Constitutional-Interpretation-Reference/dp/0300272227">Memory and Authority: The Uses of History in Constitutional Interpretation</a></i> (Yale University Press):<br /></p><blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfMXcDMmcOQTajkeGO1uc746RBJ6H-ZqvtAefiNHpUiEG3KTnksSn8_xB-GS-_SSa_dJTxrKz1twdftkJQlQN5FfAoHtbr2cE2VZLAmBU1vYI60OkBFdASvG4w0GZqcPyNpqoozVqibxbxau2j9DfO5uvd1IBAn1f_I1CS97zJE0eEYXpCaEd7LwKvglGC/s1000/61dJfNQvJgL._SL1000_.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="665" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfMXcDMmcOQTajkeGO1uc746RBJ6H-ZqvtAefiNHpUiEG3KTnksSn8_xB-GS-_SSa_dJTxrKz1twdftkJQlQN5FfAoHtbr2cE2VZLAmBU1vYI60OkBFdASvG4w0GZqcPyNpqoozVqibxbxau2j9DfO5uvd1IBAn1f_I1CS97zJE0eEYXpCaEd7LwKvglGC/w140-h210/61dJfNQvJgL._SL1000_.jpg" width="140" /></a></div>Fights over history are at the heart of most important constitutional disputes in America. The Supreme Court’s current embrace of originalism is only the most recent example of how lawyers and judges try to use history to establish authority for their positions. Jack M. Balkin argues that fights over constitutional interpretation are often fights over collective memory. Lawyers and judges construct—and erase—memory to lend authority to their present-day views; they make the past speak their values so they can then claim to follow it. The seemingly opposed camps of originalism and living constitutionalism are actually mirror images of a single phenomenon: how lawyers use history to adapt an ancient constitution to a constantly changing world.<br /> <br />Balkin shows how lawyers and judges channel history through standard forms of legal argument that shape how they use history and even what they see in history. He explains how lawyers and judges invoke history selectively to construct authority for their claims and undermine the authority of opposing views. And he elucidates the perpetual quarrel between historians and lawyers, showing how the two can best join issue in legal disputes. This book is a sweeping rethinking of the uses of history in constitutional interpretation. </blockquote>--Dan Ernst<br /><p></p><p></p>ernsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785634201759560130noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226690016900160196.post-62480837208462575652024-02-27T11:00:00.002-05:002024-02-27T16:29:20.868-05:00Artists and the Law in Baroque Rome at UAM<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxoqdjWiSVKF8zJTYpp6tbOVf2ZqfMtpYyVkHpYXgxKfFVphtnb0hgaAnAHRQGys8lqSBltCnNrbcFxe7IVyBux6Jqk0-7BPolcFdk6T7UpE4IQ2Xa6BcEqQccVcWGRLA20kyJ4fnLdMrdBGvDDRWpBOQ_5l-eIjjXMc-wXlqszvOzrWYpRMRpxa9bZoWI/s100/UAMgrande_Redes-ozdrscipzxbltyl2kn0altemwcdfdlic2o1plb80rs.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="100" data-original-width="100" height="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxoqdjWiSVKF8zJTYpp6tbOVf2ZqfMtpYyVkHpYXgxKfFVphtnb0hgaAnAHRQGys8lqSBltCnNrbcFxe7IVyBux6Jqk0-7BPolcFdk6T7UpE4IQ2Xa6BcEqQccVcWGRLA20kyJ4fnLdMrdBGvDDRWpBOQ_5l-eIjjXMc-wXlqszvOzrWYpRMRpxa9bZoWI/s1600/UAMgrande_Redes-ozdrscipzxbltyl2kn0altemwcdfdlic2o1plb80rs.png" width="100" /></a></div>[With help from an automatic translator, we have the following announcement. DRE]<br /><br />The next session of the Coloquios Historia Derecho at the Universidad Autnóma de Madrid will take place on Wednesday, March 6, at 3:00 p.m., in Seminar VIII of the Faculty of Law.<br /><br />Professor <b>Antonia Fiori</b> (<b>Università degli studi di Roma – La Sapienza</b>), will speak about her research on artists' contracts in Baroque Rome, with the presentation titled “ Rome wasn't built in a day: Artists and the Law in Renaissance and Baroque Rome.” More information on the Ccolloquim is <a href="https://historiadelderechouam.com/2023-2024/">here</a>.<br /><br />To connect via Zoom: Meeting ID: 829 1079 8716 / Passcode: 609743<br /><br />The next session, taught by Professor María Teresa Calderón, will now be held on March 22.<p></p>ernsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785634201759560130noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226690016900160196.post-34004195349233147912024-02-27T09:30:00.007-05:002024-02-27T09:30:00.138-05:00ASLH Deadline Approaching<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7OO9fqOhyv-xahU8fISQAUnb7VBEFkH04WRsxmdXLI9OnPXQKXi1gh5kYlour5u6RmyvSStnJ93Y3z-u_5RT_23m83IiQ5SpHBoPJjY52KWooZ5zFXe9EPX4XpVSIxC-hzhIu5-Nx88qj3nvudV_LKT4Eo2Gg4z-1s3zhJHUxVuM_R_0XnCMdm393HwPp/s225/aslh%20logo%20blue%20square.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="225" height="147" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7OO9fqOhyv-xahU8fISQAUnb7VBEFkH04WRsxmdXLI9OnPXQKXi1gh5kYlour5u6RmyvSStnJ93Y3z-u_5RT_23m83IiQ5SpHBoPJjY52KWooZ5zFXe9EPX4XpVSIxC-hzhIu5-Nx88qj3nvudV_LKT4Eo2Gg4z-1s3zhJHUxVuM_R_0XnCMdm393HwPp/w147-h147/aslh%20logo%20blue%20square.jpg" width="147" /></a></div>[The Program Co-Chairs for this year’s annual meeting of the <b>American Society for Legal History</b> have made the following announcement. DRE]<br /><br />A friendly reminder that the deadline for panel proposals for this fall's Annual Meeting in San Francisco is rapidly approaching (<b>March 15</b>). Information on how to build a successful panel can be found here.<br /> <br />Only complete panel proposals will be accepted, with the exception of the session on Digital Legal History (which welcomes individual submissions). Scholars looking to build a panel may post their potential paper topics here. Senior scholars who are willing to chair and/or comment on a panel may register their interest and availability here. All proposals should be submitted through the Confex platform. <br /> <br />We look forward to seeing you in San Francisco!<br /><br />Karen Tani & Rowan Dorin (Program Committee Co-Chairs)<p></p>ernsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785634201759560130noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226690016900160196.post-70967869961555931272024-02-27T00:30:00.004-05:002024-02-27T00:30:00.139-05:00Kamin on the "Great Writ of Popular Sovereignty"<p><b>William M. M. Kamin, Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law,</b> has posted <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4714694">The Great Writ of Popular Sovereignty</a>, which is forthcoming in the <i>Stanford Law Review</i>:<br /></p><blockquote>American habeas corpus, long conventionally known as the Great Writ of Liberty (“GWL”), is more properly understood as the Great Writ of Popular Sovereignty (“GWPS”): a tool for We the People to insist that when our agents in government exercise our delegated penal powers, they remain faithful to our sovereign will. Once we grasp this conceptual shift, the implications for the law of habeas are profound.<br /><br />In the past fifteen years, novel archival research has shown the GWL’s founding myth to be ahistorical – that ideas about sovereignty, rather than individual liberty, drove the common-law writ’s development in the centuries of English history running up to its reception into American law. Given widespread consensus that (1) English history should and does drive American habeas jurisprudence and (2) the sovereigntist account of that history should now be treated as authoritative, it is puzzling that American courts and scholars have continued to cling to the GWL mythos. Meanwhile, American habeas law is in crisis, with an ideologically cross-cutting array of scholars and jurists criticizing it as intellectually incoherent, practically ineffectual, and immensely wasteful. Over the Supreme Court’s past three Terms, Justice Neil Gorsuch has led a charge to hollow out federal postconviction habeas almost entirely, arguing that habeas courts should ask only whether the sentencing court was one of “general criminal jurisdiction” – and not whether it violated federal constitutional law en route to entering the petitioner’s judgment of conviction.<br /><br />An accurate understanding of the English history, soundly translated into the logic of American popular sovereignty, demands reconceptualizing the American writ as GWPS. And by following that imperative, we just might save American habeas jurisprudence from its present crisis. Most critically, a theory of GWPS would illuminate the flaws in Justice Gorsuch’s historical argument for gutting postconviction habeas. Paradoxically, shifting from the conceptual lens of GWL to that of GWPS would yield habeas doctrine more effective in protecting individual liberty. Finally, such a shift would bring coherence to otherwise-inscrutable questions in the theory and doctrine of American habeas.</blockquote><p>--Dan Ernst <br /></p><p></p>ernsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05785634201759560130noreply@blogger.com