Moral Regulation of "Economy" in the Early Modern Atlantic World

[We have the following announcement.  DRE]

Symposium on Comparative Early Modern Legal History: Law, Theology, and the Moral Regulation of "Economy"  in the Early Modern Atlantic World.  Friday, March 25, 2022.  Newberry Library, Chicago.

The time is long past when the Western world's emergent commercial culture could be understood solely in terms of a Protestant ethos or the division between commerce and social morality occasioned by the Protestant Reformation. Scholarship has shown that "modern" ideas regarding commerce and "economics" had their roots in late-medieval Catholic thought and in neo-scholastic ideas that blended theology, justice, and law. It is clear as well that the rise of commercial thinking was not a linear intellectual development. Protestants and Catholics alike, facing the moral and social implications of novel "economic" relations, undertook deep theological and legal reflections regarding unbridled, competitive, exchange-oriented gain seeking. Many of these concerns were raised in the context of Europe's westward expansion to the New World. Usury, just price, interest, legal personality, slavery, reciprocity, property, cases of conscience, doubts regarding self-regulating mechanisms, concerns for the poor-all figured in a vibrant legal discourse that simultaneously elaborated and critiqued a set of ideas regarding human economy that became dominant between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. This conference will bring together historians, legal scholars, and social scientists to investigate law's historical role in enabling and regulating behaviors now recognized as foundational to modern economies.

Brian Owensby (University of Virginia) and Richard Ross (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign) organized "Law, Theology, and the Moral Regulation of 'Economy'  in the Early Modern Atlantic World."  The conference is an offering of the Symposium on Comparative Early Modern Legal History, which gathers every other year at the Newberry Library in Chicago in order to explore a particular topic in the comparative legal history of the Atlantic world in the period c.1492-1815.  Funding has been provided by the University of Illinois College of Law.  

Attendance at the Symposium is free and open to the public.  Those who wish to attend should preregister by sending an email to Richard Ross at Rjross@illinois.edu.  Papers will be circulated electronically to all registrants several weeks before the conference.

For information about the conference, please consult our website or contact Richard Ross at Rjross@illinois.edu or at 217-244-7890.  

[Schedule after the jump.]

CFP: ANZLHS 2020 (Revised)

 [We are moving up this call for papers, which has just been revised--see italicize words--in light of recent quarantine breaches in New Zealand that the organizers fear have significantly lessened the likelihood of a face-to-face conference in Auckland in December. DRE]

“One Empire, Many Colonies, Similar or Different Histories?”

39th Annual Conference of the Australian and New Zealand Law and History Society, Auckland, 9th-12th December 2020

Abstracts are invited from scholars bringing historical perspective on law who wish to gather at The University of Auckland and AUT University - there to listen to and discuss papers and panels on aspects of law in history.  Well, that was the original plan, but since the impact of COVID-19, travel restrictions and university funding deficits, we now also seek expressions of interest from those who may wish to present a paper to a dual format conference or virtual-only conference if either possibility turns out to be feasible.

The 2020 theme invites a comparative lens on British imperial and colonial histories. Other papers with an historical perspective on law might include work that positions law in a specific temporal frame; deals with histories of law, lawmaking, and legal ideas; or has a focus on legal institutions and their personnel. Proposals from postgraduate and early career researchers are welcome.

Individual paper proposals for a 20 minute presentation must include an abstract (no more than 300 words) and a biographical statement (no more than 100 words).  Panel proposals by 3 or 4 speakers should include the above, plus a panel title and brief rationale for the panel as a whole (no more than 300 words).  All abstracts must be submitted to Karen Fairweather: k.fairweather@auckland.ac.nz by 31 July 2020.

The Organising Committee intends to notify all those whose abstracts have been accepted for the programme by the end of August 2020. All presenters must be current financial members of the Australian and New Zealand Law and History Society, or must pay a subscription for the 2020 year.

Graduate students are invited to apply for Kercher Scholarships to assist them in attending the conference. Please apply to Katherine Sanders: k.sanders@auckland.ac.nz by 31 August. Graduate attendees may also wish to enter for the Forbes Society Prize.

The Society's peer-reviewed journal law&history will consider submissions from those who present papers at the conference. A conference website with information on registration costs, accommodation options, etc will be established in due course. Our keynote speakers will include Dame Sian Elias (Retired NZ Chief Justice), Joshua Getzler (Oxford) and Miranda Johnson (Sydney, but soon to be at Otago).

Further information about the conference may be gleaned from David Williams: dv.williams@auckland.ac.nz or from [here].

Sommer on autopsy and confession in Qing China

Matthew H. Sommer (Stanford University) has published "Some Problems with Corpses: Standards of Validity in Qing Homicide Cases" as part of Martin Hofmann, Joachim Kurtz and Ari Daniel Levine, eds., Powerful Arguments: Standards of Validity in Late Imperial China, Sinica Leidensia, vol.146 with Brill (5 March 2020). Here's the opening:

This chapter explores homicide cases from the Qing dynasty (1644-1912) to interrogate the perfect balance between autopsy and confession that was necessary for magistrates to pass judgment. What factors might disturb that balance, and what problems then arose? How did the Qing system cope with these problems? Moreover, how good was Qing forensic medicine, according to modern standards?

When considering standards of validity in the legal field, it is useful to distinguish between representation and practice: that is, between the ideal principles invoked by normative sources and the practical realities that impinged on the actual work of judicial authorities. This chapter will tack between the two dimensions, illuminating how the Qing judicial system was supposed to work, but also how difficult forensic cases might induce magistrates and coroners to diverge from that ideal. Running through this material like a red thread is the Qing judiciary's reliance on self-incrimination under duress--raising fundamental questions that are not merely academic, given their painful relevance to criminal justice in China and elsewhere today.

Further information is available here. 

--Mitra Sharafi