Making Connections: The ASLH Author-Meets Reader Series

We recently received a reminder of one of the advantages of membership in the American Society for Legal History.  Some years back, the ASLH decided to supplement and, to a certain extent, supplant, “author-meets-reader” sessions at its annual meeting, with the virtual series Making Connections: New Works in Legal History.  Anyone may Zoom in, but only ASLH members may access the recordings.

'This academic year’s lineup is quite impressive: Anna O. Law, Migration and the Origins of American Citizenship—African Americans, Native Americans, and Immigrants (Oxford University Press, 2026); Gautham Rao, White Power: Policing American Slavery (University of North Carolina Press, 2026); Melissa Crouch, The Palimpsest Constitution: The Social Life of Constitutions in Myanmar (Oxford University Press, 2025);  Rohit De and Ornit Shani, Assembling India’s Constitution: A New Democratic History (Cambridge University Press, 2025); Rachel A. Shelden, The Political Supreme Court: A Forgotten History (University of North Carolina Press, 2026); Ari Z. Bryen, The Judgment of the Provinces: The Roman Empire and the Origins of Law and Society (Cambridge University Press, 2026); Barbara Young Welke, Writing with Fire: The Cowboy Suit Tragedy and the Course of a Life (University of Chicago Press, 2026); Sonia Tycko, Captured Consent: Contract Labor in English Charity, Colonization, and War, 1600–1700 (Cambridge University Press, 2026); Jill Elaine Hasday, We the Men: How Forgetting Women’s Struggles for Equality Perpetuates Inequality (Oxford University Press, 2025); Holly Brewer, The King’s Slaves: The British Empire and the Origins of American Slavery (Princeton University Press, 2027).  The interlocutors are just as good as the books. 

Thank You to Guest Blogger Mitra Sharafi!

We are so grateful to Professor Mitra Sharafi (University of Wisconsin, Madison) for coming back to the blog this past month and posting a wonderful series of reflections. Here is a round-up of her contributions, all of which involved the process of writing Fear of the False: Forensic Science and the Law of Crime in Colonial South Asia (Cornell University Press):

•  10 Things I learned while writing my (second) book

•  10 Sources I discovered while writing my (second) book

• Teaching for Research (in which Sharafi highly recommends "designing a course to get yourself in shape for your next book project")

• Using Detective Fiction as a Source 

If you can't get enough of these posts, we know at least one place where you'll be able to find Prof. Sharafi this fall: in Banff, at the annual meeting of the American Society for Legal History. As ASLH President, she will preside over what looks to be a fantastic conference. (Register here.)   

Next up at the blog: guest blogger Gautham Rao.

-- Karen Tani

ASLH Banff: Draft Program Released

The draft program for the annual meeting of the American Society for Legal History to be held November 12-14, 2026, at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Banff, Alberta, Canada, is here.  In her email circulating the link, ASLH Secretary Emily Prifogle adds:

Please note that Pre-Conference Symposia and Workshop are open to all ASLH registrants, but that the early modern pre-conference workshop requires prior registration and is capped at 20 participants.

I want to take this opportunity to remind you that now is a great time to register for the conference! Please also use this as an occasion to make reservations in the conference hotel. Staying in the conference hotel benefits the Society, but rooms do often fill up quickly. 

--Dan Ernst

Histories of Law and Technology: An ASLH Virtual Working Group

[We have the following announcement from the ASLH.  DRE]

Virtual Working Group 2026-2027: “Histories of Law and Technology”

We are delighted to invite legal historians and historians of technology to participate in the “Histories of Law and Technology” virtual workshop during 2026–2027. The group will explore the historical relationship between law and a variety of different technologies, including agricultural, military, industrial, domestic, communication, surveillance, transportation, and reproduction. We imagine historical explorations of key sociolegal concepts such as “technology,” “invention,” and “innovation” that engage not only constitutional law and intellectual property law, but also torts, contracts, and family law (among others), while considering questions of empire, race, Indigeneity, and sovereignty.

Format: In this workshop, we will discuss pre-circulated drafts of works in progress. We will meet monthly during the September 2026–May 2027 academic year (except for December), for a total of eight meetings. We will meet at a set time (to be determined by participants). Each workshop is 1 hour in length.

Participating in the Workshop: Participation in the group is open to scholars from all backgrounds and locations interested in the history of law and technology. (While maintaining a focus on technology, the group will also welcome those working in the history of science and medicine who are also engaging with law and technology.) We especially invite junior scholars, international scholars, as well as historians of technology who would like to become involved with the ASLH. We expect participants to attend most, if not all, of the meetings.

Presenting a Paper in the Workshop: If you would like to present a work in progress in the workshop, please indicate so in your application.

To apply: By August 31, please send the following to K.Swanson@northeastern.edu and jss2110@gmail.com with the subject line “Histories of Law and Technology”

• A brief bio (200 words max)
• A short statement explaining your interest in the topic (300 words max)
• Indication of your scheduling preferences for time of day (EST) and day of the week*

If you want to present a paper, please provide a potential title*

Workshop Coordinator Bios:  Jason Schulman, PhD, is an adjunct instructor in History at New York University and the Jewish Theological Seminary, where he has taught courses on the US constitution, legal theory, and the criminal justice system. His interests are in American constitutional history, religious history, and the history of technology. He is the co-coordinator (with Amy Bix) of the CJH Scholars Working Group on Jewish History and Technology. He is the editor of Holocaust Education in America: Politics and Pedagogy, 1982–2025 (Texas Tech University Press, 2026). He was a 2025 Fulbright Scholar to Australia.

Kara W. Swanson, JD/PhD, is Professor of Law/Affiliate Professor of History at Northeastern University. Her research examines the intersections among technology, science, medicine and law throughout US history, with particular attention to intellectual property and property law, gender and sexuality, race and racism, and empire. Before coming to Northeastern, she was the Berger-Howe Fellow in Legal History at Harvard Law School. Her first book, Banking on the Body: The Market in Blood, Milk and Sperm in Modern America (Harvard University Press, 2014), was a medicolegal history of human body property. Her article “Inventing the Woman Voter: Suffrage, Ability, and Patents,” 19 J. Gilded Age & Progressive Era 559 (2020), received the Martha Trescott Prize from Society for the History of Technology. Her book-in-progress is "Inventing Citizens: A Surprising History of U.S. Inventors, Patents, and Civil Rights."

CFP: ASLH Projects and Proposals Committee

[Via H-Law, we have the following from the ASLH.  DRE]

The American Society for Legal History welcomes proposals for the funding of new initiatives in the study, presentation, and production of legal historical scholarship and in the communication of legal history to all its possible publics and audiences. The Projects and Proposals Funding Committee is accepting applications now through September 1, 2026. Funding may support conferences, publications, museum exhibits, pedagogical experiments, and other collective pursuits.  For more detail and to access the application form, please visit the ASLH website. 

For information, contact Elizabeth D. Katz, Chair, American Society for Legal History Projects and Proposals Committee, Professor, University of Florida Levin College of Law at 
proposals@aslh.net.

ASLH Pre-conference on "Radical Legal Advocacy"

We have the following ASLH-related announcement:

We invite historians of all time periods and regions to register their interest in attending a pre-ASLH annual meeting symposium on Radical Legal Advocacy. The day-long meeting will be held in Banff on November 12th. 

This gathering arises out of the work of the “Roundtable on Radical Legal Advocacy” that was organized as one of the ASLH’s inaugural virtual working groups. Since the end of last summer, a remarkable group of scholars has been meeting virtually to define our terms, explore common questions, and share works in progress. In this in person symposium, we hope to build on the virtual work we’ve been doing and expand the conversation to include new voices. In this spirit, we invite anyone who might be interested in joining us to indicate their interest using this form. The symposium will offer various ways to participate, from serving as panelists on roundtables to sharing early works in progress. 

Depending on how many folks respond, we may not be able to accommodate everyone! But we will do our best.

Dan Farbman

Marie-Amelie George

ASLH "New Works" Series

[We have the following announcement.  DRE]

Making Connections: New Works in Legal History Series 
Sponsored by the American Society for Legal History

Deadline for Applications: June 30, 2026
 
The ASLH Making Connections: New Works in Legal History Series aims to foster conversations and connections beyond the Annual Meeting about exciting new work in the field of legal history or publications likely to be of interest to legal historians. The series is hosted by the ASLH Committee on Digital Initiatives. 
 
Schedule: Most of the series events will be held on Zoom at 6-7 pm Central on Wednesdays. In addition, the committee plans to hold events outside of the regular schedule to accommodate for presentors and interlocutors living in different time zones. 
 
Event Structure: Each event opens with a brief introduction of the work by the author, followed by conversation between the author and an interlocutor of their choice, and closing with conversation with the audience. In panels featuring more than 1 book or article, we expect the authors to serve as interlocutors for each other. There is no expectation that audience members have read the work. 
 
Eligibility: Books, Articles, or Digital Legal Histories published January 2025-December 2026 
 
We encourage both U.S. based and international scholars at all career stages working in all geographic and chronological fields to apply. We welcome applications for events featuring one book, two books or articles in conversation, and events coordinated with another professional society. ASLH membership is encouraged, but not required. Books featured on a New Directions panel at the Annual Meeting are eligible. 
 
Applications: (max. 1 page; 12 pt font)

• Book/Article/DLH Author, Title, Publisher (for articles: Journal title; for DLH: url) and Publication date
• Book/Article/DLH Abstract and explanation about the relevance of the work to an audience of legal historians (1-2 paragraph)
• Author Bio, including email & ASLH membership status (1 paragraph)
• Interlocutor Bio, including email & ASLH membership status (1 paragraph)

FAQ: 

Does the same 1-page limit apply to applications for more than 1 book or multiple articles? Yes. We are especially interested in hearing how featuring the works together would make for an interesting conversation.

Do I have to find my own interlocutor? Yes. Only complete submissions, including those with an interlocutor, will be considered. 
 
Please direct questions and submissions to Naama Maor, nmaor@tauex.tau.ac.il

Deadline Approaching: ASLH Student Research Colloquium

 [We have the following Call for Applicants.  DRE]

The American Society for Legal History will host its thirteenth annual Student Research Colloquium (SRC) on Wednesday, November 11, and Thursday, November 12, 2026, in Banff, Alberta, Canada.  Each year, the SRC brings eight graduate students to the site of the ASLH annual meeting to discuss their in-progress dissertations or other research projects with each other and with ASLH-affiliated scholars.  Target applicants include early-post-coursework Ph.D. students and historically minded law students.  All students whose research touches on legal-historical themes are encouraged to apply, whatever their chronological or geographical focuses.  Applicants who have not yet had an opportunity to interact with the ASLH are welcome, as are those who have never received any formal training in legal history.  A student may present a paper at the annual meeting and participate in the SRC in the same year.  The ASLH will either partially or, if possible, fully reimburse participants’ travel, hotel, and conference-registration costs.  To apply, submit the following three items to John Wertheimer at: srcproposals@aslh.net:

• a cover letter describing, among other things, how far along you are and approximately how many years remain in your present course of study;
• an up-to-date CV; and 
• a two-page, single-spaced research statement that contains a working title and describes the in-progress research project that you would like to present at the colloquium.

Application deadline: June 1, 2026.

Thanks to the extraordinary generosity of ASLH donors, the SRC is able to offer student participants fellowships named in honor of past and present leaders in our field: the Lauren Benton Fellowship, the Herbert A. Johnson Fellowship, the Martha Jones Fellowship, the Laura Kalman Fellowship, the William Novak/University of Michigan Law School Fellowship, the Amy Dru Stanley Fellowship, the John Wertheimer/Davidson College Fellowship, and the James Whitman/Yale Law School Fellowship. 

ASLH 2026 Registration Open

[We have the following announcement from Emily Prifogle, Secretary of the American Society for Legal History.  DRE.]

We are happy to announce that pre-registration for the ASLH meeting in Banff is now open! 

If you navigate to the conference page, you will be able to register. Pre-registration is open and refundable until October 9, so we encourage you to register early. This helps the Society in our planning.

We encourage attendees to stay at the conference hotel and to make hotel reservations early. The ASLH contracts for a set number of rooms at the negotiated rate. Once those rooms are taken--and this can happen well before the conference registration deadline--attendees must make other arrangements, either at the conference hotel at a higher room rate or elsewhere.

Our local arrangements committee has also added a guide to Banff, including cultural icons, restaurants, and practical tips on transportation.

We also gently remind you that the deadline to apply for ASLH prizes and fellowships is coming on June 1. Projects and Proposals funding will be due on September 1.

Finally, we are pleased to announce that the ASLH 2027 meeting will be held November 4-6 in Minneapolis!  

We look forward to seeing you in Banff.

ASLH "In Memoriam" for William E. Nelson

The American Society for Legal History has posted a memorial for William E. Nelson, whose passing we noted in December. The "In Memoriam," by Hendrik Hartog (Princeton University), begins:

Bill Nelson, who died three months ago, was a pivotal and transformative figure in the growth of the field of American legal history.  His scholarship included several monuments and field defining works.  His mentorship was unmatched. Because of him, the Golieb Seminar at NYU Law School became a necessary way station for two generations of budding legal historians.  And his generosity of spirit was legendary.  He changed many lives, all for the better.

Bill was both an intense and serious historian and an even more intense and serious lawyer.  But he also engaged with both law and history with an incredible sense of fun and joy.  His work was always marked by an amazing work-ethic and what can only be called sitzfleisch.  He read cases and cases and cases.  He believed in reading everything, all the primary documents.  When he covered a subject, he did so in ways that no else one ever did.  Selectivity and sampling were not his ways.   Coverage was.   And the results could be immensely revealing.  He worked hard, and he worked fast.  And he left an extraordinary body of scholarship.

Read on here.

-- Karen Tani

Global Dissertation Prize

[We have the following announcement from the ASLH.  DRE.]

The American Society for Legal History (ASLH) is delighted to announce a new dissertation prize: the Global Dissertation Prize for the best dissertation in global legal history. The [prize] recognizes the best dissertation from the previous calendar year on topics centered outside the United States. Eligible dissertations must be written in English and submitted for a PhD, JSD, or equivalent doctoral degree, excluding the JD, awarded in the previous calendar year (for example, a dissertation for a PhD awarded in 2025 would be eligible in 2026). Dissertations should not be predominantly focused on the US and may examine contexts, processes, or institutions that are local, regional, imperial, comparative, global, or otherwise. 

Submissions should be made by the author including only (1) the dissertation as submitted to the university for the degree, and (2) a curriculum vitae. 

To be considered for the year’s prize, the author should e-mail a PDF electronic copy of the dissertation and author’s curriculum vitae to the prize committee chair (globaldissertationprize@aslh.net) with the subject heading: GLOBAL DISSERTATION PRIZE SUBMISSION. Please title the PDF as “author last name” and “short title” .pdf (for example, Adewoye Lawyers Southern Nigeria.pdf).  

Deadline for Submissions: June 1, 2026.  Award Amount: $500.

Weekend Roundup

• 
  
  A head's up to those thinking about submitting proposals for the annual meeting of the American Society for Legal History in Banff, November 12-14: the deadline is March 24.   

• This year's Bancroft Prizes have gone to two works of legal history: Emilie Connolly’s Vested Interests: Trusteeship and Native Dispossession in the United States and Beth Lew-Williams’s John Doe Chinaman: A Forgotten History of Chinese Life Under American Racial Law (NYT).

• Legal history bulks large among the finalists for the book division of the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Awards for Media and the Arts: The Zorg: A Tale of Greed and Murder that Inspired the Abolition of Slavery, by Siddharth Kara; The Radical Fund: How a Band of Visionaries and a Million Dollars Upended America, by John Fabian Witt; We The People: A History of the U.S. Constitution, by Jill Lepore; You Can't Kill a Man Because of the Books He Reads: Angelo Herndon's Fight for Free Speech, by Brad Snyder; American Scare: Florida's Cold War on Black and Queer Lives, by Robert Fieseler; and The Containment: Detroit, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for Racial Justice in the North, by Michelle Adams.  

• The Irish Legal History Society has announced its 2026 essay prize.  "Submissions are invited by 31 May on any topic within Irish legal history, broadly conceived, from both undergraduates and postgraduates."

• 
  The latest two volumes in the Oliver Wendell Holmes Devise History of the Supreme Court of the United States, The Taft Court: Making Law for a Divided Nation, 1921–1930, by Robert C. Post, Yale Law School, and The Hughes Court: From Progressivism to Pluralism, 1930 to 1941, by Mark V. Tushnet, Harvard Law School, are now available as paperbacks from Cambridge University Press.

• The U.S. Department of Justice has announced that a museum devoted to its past will open in July 2026. 

• Anna Snyder on the "odd omission" of lawyers in commemorations of the 250th anniversary of independence (AHA Perspectives). 

• A notice of Maria Fletcher, Charlie Peevers, and Seonaid Stevenson-McCabe's chapter on "Madge Easton Anderson, the first woman in Scotland and the UK to become a professional lawyer," in Celebrating Women in Legal History: Making and Shaping a Discipline (Scottish Legal News). 

• "The 1957 executive order signed by President Dwight Eisenhower to enforce the desegregation of Little Rock Central High School is one of the documents on display at the Clinton Presidential Center at a new exhibit chronicling the history of the 27 amendments to the Constitution" (Arkansas Advocate).    

• Michele Goodwin’s Presidential Address to the Law & Society Association prompted June Carbone to reflect on teaching Johnson v. McIntosh and Dred Scott in the comment Claiming History.

• A Harvard Law Review note: Making the Rules of the Rules of the Game: The Use, Misuse, and Disuse of the Rulemaking Grant in the Act of 1842.

• Robert L. Tsai reviews Cliff Sloan's The Court at War (Washington Monthly). 

• Lawbook Exchange's March catalogue of Scholarly Law and Legal History.

• ICYMI:  Phillip W. Magness on Justice Thomas's dissent in the IEEPA decision (Law & Liberty). A notice of Vernon Burton's talk, “The First Amendment and Lincoln’s Constitutional Legacy" at Clemson's "week of celebrating First Amendment rights and history" (Clemson News). Tarun Choudhury on Sir Garfield Barwick (Legal Service India).  Ernie Walton thinks that Originalists Need the Classical Legal Tradition (Public Discourse).

 Weekend Roundup is a weekly feature compiled by all the Legal History bloggers.

Barbara Aronstein Black (1933-2026)

Columbia Law reports that Barbara Aronstein Black died yesterday.  She was president of the American Society for Legal History in 1985-1989, when I joined the scholarly discipline of legal history.  She was so gracious to a new entrant and so wise and wryly intelligent that I knew I wanted to be a member of any club that would have her as its leader.

Here is Dean Daniel Abebe's letter to Columbia Law's faculty and staff.

Barbara A. Black (CLS)

I write to share the deeply sorrowful news that Barbara Aronstein Black—graduate of the Class of 1955, longtime member of our faculty, and the first woman to serve as Columbia Law dean—passed away yesterday at the age of 92. 

Barbara was born and raised in Brooklyn, attended New York City public schools, and, at the young age of 16, enrolled at Brooklyn College. She decided to attend Columbia Law School at the suggestion of one of her undergraduate professors—eschewing earlier plans to go to Brooklyn Law School like her father and brothers. Despite being one of only a handful of women in her law school class, Barbara quickly flourished at Columbia. “It was in the Columbia Law School that I suddenly woke to the fact that serious intellectual endeavor was right for me, was what I wanted to do, was what I felt myself capable of doing,” she said during an interview in 2006. She also met her future husband of nearly 50 years, Professor Charles L. Black Jr., at Columbia Law School.

After a hiatus from academia spent raising her three children, Barbara began a graduate program at Yale University. She earned a Ph.D. in history in 1975 and joined the Yale faculty as a professor of history the following year. As a scholar, Barbara’s research was at the intersection of law and Anglo-American history, and one of her earliest publications, “The Constitution of Empire: The Case for the Colonists,” (University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 1976) earned broad acclaim among the legal academy.

Barbara accepted a tenured faculty position as the George Welwood Murray Professor of Legal History at Columbia Law School in 1984, relishing the chance to return to her native city. Just two years later, Barbara assumed the deanship, making national news as the first woman to helm an Ivy League law school. During her five-year tenure, Barbara advanced curricular reform, recruited several renowned corporate law scholars to the Law School faculty, and addressed persistent issues with the physical plant. She also was instrumental in launching initiatives on race and gender studies and introduced flexible options for students and employees who were mothers.  

Along the way, Barbara faced obstacles that were all too typical for women of her generation. She described “the essential maleness of the law school culture” she experienced as a student and academic fellow. It was all the more meaningful, then, that Barbara chose to accept the Columbia Law School deanship—a decision she hoped would send a message to other women struggling to succeed in the male-dominated legal academy. 

Barbara retired from teaching in 2008 but continued to remain active both at Columbia Law School and in the legal academy writ large. She was a fixture at Law School events like the annual Stone Circle Luncheon, which brings together alumni who graduated 50 or more years ago. Barbara lived close to campus for many years and only recently relocated to Philadelphia to be near her daughter—a move that was, she wrote to me on January 9, “turning out very well.” 

It is impossible for me to characterize the depth of Barbara Black’s impact on, and affection for, Columbia Law School. She was a singular figure in our history, someone who truly accelerated the transformation of this institution and left an indelible legacy—including a beautiful portrait and a professorship named in her honor—that will no doubt endure well into the future. 

Please join me in expressing sincere condolences to Barbara’s family, including her three children: David, Gavin, and Robin. We will post a full tribute on the Law School’s website in the coming days and hope to gather to celebrate Barbara’s life in due course.

Updates: The New York Times obituary.  And more from Columbia Law.

 --Dan Ernst 

ASLH Submission Portal Open

The portal for submitting proposals for the annual meeting of the American Society for Legal History in Banff on November 12-14, 2026, is now open.  Access it via the CFP.  

--Dan Ernst 

Nominate an ASLH Honorary Fellow!

[We have the following Call for Nominations for Honorary Fellows from the American Society for Legal History.  DRE.]

The Honors Committee of the American Society for Legal History solicits nominations of senior scholars for consideration for election as Honorary Fellows of the Society.  Election as Honorary Fellow is the highest honor the Society can confer.  It recognizes distinguished historians whose scholarship has shaped the broad discipline of legal history and influenced the work of others.  Honorary Fellows are the scholars we admire, whom we aspire to emulate, and on whose shoulders we stand.  The Society seeks to recognize scholars who are not simply distinguished in their fields, but who also have given back to the discipline and made their fields stronger by creating communities of scholars and scholarship and by helping other (often younger) scholars to stand on their shoulders.  In other words, scholars who are as committed to building a future for their fields as they are to studying the past.  Commensurate with the growing international reach of the Society, we seek nominations of senior scholars who, collectively, similarly encompass the wide scope of scholarship in legal history.

Nominations should be submitted to Ariela Gross, chair of the Honors Committee, by email (grossa@law.ucla.edu) before February 9, 2026.  Each nomination should include a statement of why the nominee merits election.  Statements should address the nominee’s scholarly distinction and their citizenship in the field.  A list of current and past honorary fellows is [here].

ASLH election results

The transition to the new year seems like a good time to post the results of the recent American Society for Legal History election. 

As announced at the annual meeting earlier this fall, the incoming President Elect is Michelle McKinley. 

Incoming Board members are Mary Sarah Bilder, Li Chen, H. Timothy Lovelace, Thomas J. McSweeny, and Geneva Smith.  

Incoming Nominating Committee members are Rowan Dorin and Laura Weinrib.

For a full list of current officers, follow the link. 

-- Karen Tani

ASLH Craig Joyce Medal to Bryen, Rao

For the past month, we have been posting notices of the awards, prizes, and fellowships announced at this fall's meeting of the American Society for Legal History. There is one more to cover, and it's a special one: the Craig Joyce Medal. About this award:

The Society depends on the volunteer labors of its members. It is fortunate in the number of its members who are willing to join in the business of the Society, which is to foster scholarship and teaching in the broad field of legal history. Each year well over a hundred names appear on this website on the lists of officers, directors, and committee members. Among that number, a few people contribute their time to the Society over many years in ways that are above and beyond the call of duty, even in an organization whose members have a strong sense of duty. The Craig Joyce Medal recognizes those individuals. It is awarded on an occasional basis to acknowledge and honor extraordinary and sustained volunteer service to the Society. The medal was first awarded, fittingly, to Craig Joyce, the Andrews Kurth Professor of Law at the University of Houston, in whose honor the ASLH Board of Directors created the award.

In 2025, there were two medal recipients: Ari Bryen (Vanderbilt University) and Gautham Rao (American University). Both recipients have long records of service to the Society. Most recently, Professor Bryen served a 4-year term as the ASLH's Secretary. Professor Rao has served as the Editor-in-Chief of the ASLH-sponsored Law and History Review since 2017; in 2026, he will help transition the journal to new leadership.  

Congratulations to Professor Bryen and Professor Rao - and thank you to both of them for their extraordinary dedication to the Society and the field. 

-- Karen Tani  

CFP: ASLH 2026

[We have the Call for Papers for the annual meeting of the American Society for Legal History to be held in Banff, Canada, November 12-14, 2026.  DRE]

The Program Committee of the American Society for Legal History invites proposals for the 2026 meeting to be held November 12-14 in Banff, Canada. Panels on any facet or period of legal history from anywhere in the world are welcome. We encourage thematic proposals that transcend traditional periodization and geography. The online portal will open in early January 2026. The deadline for Pre-Conference Symposia proposals is Friday, February 27, 2026. The deadline for all other submissions is Tuesday, March 24, 2026.

Panel proposals should include the following: a CV with complete contact information for each person on the panel, including chairs and commentators; 300-word (maximum) abstracts of individual papers; and a 300-word (maximum) description of the panel. Only complete panel proposals will be considered. All conference panel slots will be 90 minutes long.

Scholars looking to build a panel may post their potential paper topics here. We encourage individuals to peruse this spreadsheet to identify other scholars with common interests, beyond their familiar networks. Senior scholars who are willing to chair and/or comment on a panel may register their interest and availability here. All program participants must be current members of the Society by the date of the Annual Meeting. Information on how to build a successful panel can be found here. The Program Committee especially encourages panels that include participants from groups historically underrepresented in the organization, and that include participants who represent a diversity of rank, experience, and institutional affiliation.

Besides traditional panels featuring presentations of work in progress, the Program Committee welcomes other forms of structured presentation, such as a skills/pedagogical workshop (chair, 3-4 presenters) or a roundtable format (chair, 3-5 presenters).

In addition to the above formats, the Program Committee accepts proposals for the following three types of panels: 

New Directions: The purpose of these panels will be to identify cutting-edge methodological and topical directions in legal history, to define new subfields, and/or generate dialogue among scholars whose recent books (published since 2023 or forthcoming) have tackled common historiographic questions. These panels may feature three to five authors of new books organized by theme, chronology, or methodology and may also include scholars writing review essays of a field, or others similarly positioned. For a panel featuring new books, the session abstract should include the author, title, publisher, and publication date for each proposed book. Please note that the Program Committee will devote only a very small number of sessions to this type of panel (likely 2-3) that are able to clearly develop broad analytical themes among the included monographs and that illuminate shifts in the “state of field” in a particular area rather than descriptions of the books themselves. The Program Committee will not accept proposals for “Author-Meets-Readers” panels for the 2026 meeting. Book authors are encouraged to apply for “Making Connections: New Works in Legal History.”

Poster Presentations: This year’s Annual Meeting will dedicate space during the conference for poster presentations on any aspect of legal history in the main conference common area. Participants in the poster presentations will also join in a “lightning round” panel session to introduce their projects. Individuals interested in participating in this session should submit a short description of their project (up to 300 words) as well as a CV. Accepted participants will be asked to submit a poster design to the organizers by early October. Posters will be printed onsite.

Graduate Lightning Round: In this session, 8-10 graduate students briefly introduce their projects and receive feedback and questions from the audience. Interested graduate students should submit their CV and an abstract of their paper. Note that given the large size of the panel, an individual presenter in this session has much less time to present their work than in a traditional panel with 3-4 presenters.

 

The Program Committee additionally seeks proposals for full-day or half-day pre-conference symposia crafted around related themes to augment traditional conference offerings. We especially encourage proposals for pre-conference events that will involve scholars in emerging fields or in fields previously underrepresented at ASLH conferences and/or that will promote early career scholarly development. We encourage those considering submitting a proposal for pre-conference symposia to be in touch with the program committee chairs. To submit a proposal, please email the program co-chairs directly to provide a short proposal (1-2 pages) including program title, the intended length of program, and a program description, as well as a CV and contact information for each presenter. The Program Committee is available to consult with organizers of such symposia as they develop their proposal, but pre-conference symposia must be largely self-funded. Limited funds will be available for pre-conference expenses like food and travel, and Program Committee co-chairs will solicit funding requests when they send out pre-conference acceptances. To be eligible for funding and included on the program, pre-conferences must be open to all conference attendees. Organizers are encouraged but not required to host their symposia at the conference hotel. Please note that the deadline for these submissions is earlier than the deadline for main conference submissions so that organizers whose symposia are not selected have an opportunity to submit their panels to the main conference.

As a general matter, we will not be able to accommodate special scheduling requests, nor will we be able to support hybrid or virtual presentations or panels. (For a fuller explanation of this policy, please see the ASLH Annual Meetings FAQ page.) Until a draft of the program is circulated, prospective presenters, chairs, and commentators at the main conference should plan to be available in person on Friday, November 13, and Saturday, November 14.

The ASLH has a strict one-appearance policy (excluding appearances at pre-conference symposia and Preyer Award panel commentators). Prospective participants may submit proposals for multiple sessions, with the understanding that the panel chair will be responsible for promptly finding an appropriate substitute member for any session from which a participant has to withdraw.

Limited financial assistance (covering air and ground transportation, conference hotel, and registration fees only) is available for conference presenters in need, with priority given to graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, contingent faculty, and scholars from abroad. Program Committee co-chairs will solicit requests for funding when they send out program acceptances.

The members of the Program Committee are Samy Ayoub, Hayden Bellenoit, Ruth Ginio, Taja-Nia Henderson, Krista Kesselring, Ada Kuskowski, Mary X. Mitchell, Ángela Pérez-Villa, Felicity Turner, Mary Anne Vallianatos, and Mary Ziegler. The co-chairs of the Program Committee are Hidetaka Hirota (hhirota@berkeley.edu) and Jedidiah Kroncke (jkroncke@hku.hk).

Max Planck-ASLH Dissertation Prize to Lilić, Quiroga-Villamarín

Continuing with our notices of the awards, prizes, and fellowships announced at the recent meeting of the American Society for Legal History, we turn now to the Max Planck-ASLH Dissertation Prize for European Legal History in a Global Perspective. About this award:

The Max Planck-ASLH Dissertation Prize for European Legal History in Global Perspective will honor exceptional dissertations on topics in European legal history in global perspective and presented for PhD or JSD degrees awarded in the previous calendar year. Topics may include European legal interactions with people or places outside Europe, legal processes spanning Europe and other world regions, and developments in legal theory closely related to imperial, transnational, or trans-regional trends. 

The 2025 award when to two scholars: Vladislav Lilić, for “Empire of States: Law and International Order in Ottoman Europe, c. 1830-1912.” (Vanderbilt University, 2024) and Daniel R. Quiroga-Villamarín, for “‘Architects of the Better World’: Democracy, Law, and the Construction of International Order (1919-1998),” (Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, 2024).

The citation for Lilić’s "Empire of States":

Vladislav Lilić’s superb dissertation, “Empire of States: Law and International Order in Ottoman Europe, c. 1830-1912,” makes a strikingly original contribution to European and global legal history by supplanting familiar narratives of Balkan state formation. The dissertation traces how small Balkan states took shape not through the influence of surging nationalism but through conflicts conducted in the medium of imperial law. Lilić demonstrates that in Montenegro and Serbia varied sets of legal actors—from viziers and Ottoman officials to pastoralists and journeymen—engaged in legal disputes that gradually reset the coordinates of political belonging, property, and public order. As a result, provincial states emerged within the empire before featuring as states in the international order. The dissertation is elegantly structured and based on extensive research in multiple languages and archives, and it combines a deft narrative style with nuanced interventions in the literature on European sovereignty and legal pluralism in global perspective.

The citation for Quiroga-Villamarín's “‘Architects of the Better World’”:

Daniel R. Quiroga-Villamarín’s outstanding dissertation, “‘Architects of the Better World’: Democracy, Law, and the Construction of International Order (1919–1998),” constitutes a seminal contribution to both the history of international law and global legal history. By tracing what he designates as the “international parliamentary complex” during international law’s move to institutions in the short twentieth century (1919–1998), Quiroga-Villamarín reconstructs the formation of international parliaments from interwar Geneva to the conclusion of the Cold War. Attending to architectural and material templates originating in Europe and their subsequent translations across continents, the dissertation spatializes history and historicizes space, shifting the perspective from figurative “architectures” to tangible built environments. The conceptual framework proves particularly innovative, foregrounding how architecture simultaneously mirrored and enabled aspirations of global order. Drawing on extensive archival research in Europe, Africa, and the Americas, it situates its argument within a rigorous methodological apparatus and advances its findings in elegant and compelling prose.

Congratulations to both winners!

-- Karen Tani

Cromwell Dissertation Prize to Borsk, Olmstead

Continuing with our notices of the awards, prizes, and fellowships announced at the recent meeting of the American Society for Legal History, we turn now to the William Nelson Cromwell Foundation Dissertation Prize, which is "awarded annually to the best dissertation in any area of American legal history, including constitutional and comparative studies, although topics dealing with the colonial and early national periods will receive some preference." 

The 2025 Cromwell Dissertation Prize went to two scholars: Michael Borsk, for “Measuring Ground: Surveyors and the Properties of States in the Great Lakes Region, 1783-1840.” (Queen’s University, 2024), and Shay R. Olmstead, “’Refuse to Run Away’: Transsexual Workers Fight for Civil Rights, 1969-1992.” (University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 2024). 

The citation for Borsk's "Measuring Ground": 

“Measuring Ground” is a comparative study of state formation through surveying techniques and paperwork in Upper Canada and Michigan Territory from the 1790s-1837. Borsk argues that the very processes of surveying and of building the archives asserted state power and authority. Surveying regulations structured the production of knowledge around boundaries, a process which depended upon indigenous participation and recognition for legitimacy. However, surveying also ultimately eroded indigenous claims to jurisdiction and sovereignty, as it converted surveyors into actors with legal authority. Turning their attention to surveyors’ papers, Borsk demonstrates how these documents and their associated archival processes produced knowledge, which in turn drove policy. The authority to determine boundaries and ownership migrated from surveyors’ offices to the courts, which applied their own standards of law and evidence.

This innovative study is based on deep archival research and makes provocative connections between the geographic and epistemological elements of the legal processes of colonization in the Upper Midwest. It expands and refines our understanding of how defining and securing individual property rights has related to state formation. Borsk also describes the way in which archival methods and processes interacted with legal rules and procedures to produce knowledge and authority, and ultimately to construct government. This work traces how indigenous knowledge and participation ironically played a key role in ultimately extinguishing indigenous claims to territory. This scholarship opens new lines of research and offers novel ways of conceptualizing the law itself.

The citation for Olmstead's "'Refuse to Run Away'" 

“'Refuse to Run Away'” is a history of thirty cases from the 1960s to the 1990s in which transsexuals (they use the contemporary term) challenged workplace
discrimination on the basis of sex or disability. Administrative agencies and courts rarely granted these plaintiffs favorable rulings. Even when they did, they did so by redefining “sex” under the law in ways that benefitted only normative, “respectable” claimants and ultimately harmed other sexual minorities. Moreover, variations in decisions among states and agencies led to the creation of multiple “cis states.” Victims of discrimination fared better when they brought claims under “disability,” because federal legislation was not written in a way that obviously excluded transsexuals from protection or defined “disability” in a way that was incompatible with transsexuality. However, in response to some scattered successful litigation, Republicans in Congress amended the Americans with Disabilities Act to exclude transsexuals, effectively closing that avenue for remedying discrimination.

Olmstead’s description of the shift from sex-based to disability-based discrimination claims is highly persuasive, and invites the reader to contemplate the liquidity of the category of “disability.” They present their analysis as evidence that legal campaigns alone are insufficient to bring about civil protections against discrimination in the workplace, and argue that political organizing must be part of the equation as well. Their discussion of rights protections is revelatory and potentially offers lessons for current campaigns to protect marginalized people.

Congratulations to both winners!

-- Karen Tani