CFP: Notre Dame Legal History Colloquium

 [We have the following announcement.  DRE] 

Notre Dame Legal History Colloquium to Begin Third Year of Meetings, Now Accepting Presenter Applications

The Notre Dame Legal History Colloquium will again convene a series of workshops during the 2026-2027 academic year for emerging legal historians. Now in its third consecutive year of meetings, the initiative is financially supported by Notre Dame Law School and The Graduate School.

Formerly known as the ASLH/Notre Dame Graduate Legal History Colloquium, the forum provides early career legal scholars and practitioners with feedback on works-in-progress—an important step in fine-tuning research to a point where it can be submitted for publication. This year, the Colloquium has been restyled to ensure that law, master’s, and doctoral students, as well as faculty members in visiting or other term-limited positions (e.g., postdocs) are eligible to present their work.

The Colloquium was established in 2024 with the support of the American Society for Legal History. It was organized at that time by Dennis Wieboldt, who graduated from Notre Dame Law School in 2026. Over the last two years, the Colloquium has enabled more than 40 students from across the country to present their research. Articles workshopped at the Colloquium have already begun (or will soon appear) in leading journals, including the Yale Law Journal, University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law, and Fordham Law Review Online.

Although the Colloquium has been restyled, its format will remain the same. Each presenter will be paired with a designated respondent, who is typically a senior scholar in the field. Previous respondents have included faculty from Notre Dame Law School, Harvard Law School, Yale Law School, the University of Chicago Law School, and the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law. All works-in-progress will continue to be pre-circulated to prospective attendees to facilitate a robust discussion.

Now that Wieboldt has concluded his studies at Notre Dame Law School, the Colloquium will be co-convened by 3L Mintae Cha and history Ph.D. student Sophie Rizzieri. Cha, who formerly earned his Ph.D. from Princeton University, received the American Society for Legal History’s 2024 William Nelson Cromwell Dissertation Prize. The Prize is awarded annually to the best dissertation in any area of American legal history by the Society. Rizzieri’s research focuses on early American intellectual, social, and legal history.

During the 2026-2027 academic year, meetings of the Colloquium will be held at the Notre Dame Law School campus in Chicago on September 26, October 17, February 6, and March 6. An additional meeting will be held at the Law School’s South Bend campus on January 16.

Those interested in presenting at and/or attending meeting(s) of the Colloquium should indicate their interest here.

CFP: International Society for Chinese Law and History

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

Call for Proposals: The Seventh Biennial Conference of the International Society for Chinese Law and History (ISCLH)

Theme: “Chinese Law in Motion: Change, Practice, Circulation, and Continuity.”  Wuhan, China, June 18-19, 2027.  Proposal submission link: ISCLH 2027 Biennial Conference Submission System.  Submission Deadline: August 31, 2026.

The International Society for Chinese Law and History (ISCLH), established in 2014, is the leading international hub for Chinese legal historians, boasting approximately 150 members worldwide. The society organizes workshops in North America and biennial conferences in Asia. To date, ISCLH has successfully organized four in-person biennial conferences, with co-sponsorship of Fudan University (Shanghai, 2015), China University of Political Science and Law (Beijing, 2017), Taipei University (Taipei, 2019), and Peking University (Beijing, 2025), respectively. Additionally, the society also hosted two virtual conferences in 2021 and 2023.

The Seventh Biennial Conference will be held in Wuhan, China on June 18-19, 2027. As with previous conferences, we welcome submissions on any aspect of Chinese legal history from any period.

We especially encourage submissions that highlight this year's theme, “Chinese Law in Motion: Change, Practice, Circulation, and Continuity.” Law is never static. Across different historical periods and political regimes, Chinese law has evolved through processes of reform, adaptation, transmission, and contestation. Legal institutions, ideas, texts, and practices have moved across jurisdictions, social groups, and geographic spaces, while also preserving and reconfiguring enduring traditions and norms. This theme encourages inquiry into the ways Chinese law has changed, circulated, and persisted across diverse historical and social contexts. We interpret Chinese law and its culture broadly, encompassing legal systems and practices in traditional China proper, those of peripheral regions, and those pertaining to Chinese communities beyond national borders. Works that approach law comparatively or from a transnational perspective are especially welcome. So are works that invite theoretical and methodological discussion.

Conference format and submission guidelines.  This conference is held in person; virtual participation is not accommodated in principle. 

We encourage the submission of proposals for organized panels, with 3-4 papers in dialogue with each other under a general topic. You are also welcome to submit individual paper proposals, which, if selected, will be grouped together with other papers into panels. The proposal and the presentation can be in either English or Chinese. 

Please use the ISCLH 2027 Biennial Conference Submission System to submit panel or individual paper proposals. 

You will need the following information to complete the submission. [For a] panel proposal:

• panel title and abstract (300 words maximum); 
• organizer and all presenters' name, email, WeChat (if available), position and affiliation, type of travel document, whether they apply for the Travel Grant, paper title and abstract (300 words maximum); 
• chair/discussant information (you can leave it blank if the chair/discussant hasn't been finalized yet) 

[For an] individual paper proposal:

• presenter's name, email, WeChat (if available), position and affiliation, type of travel document, whether you apply for the Travel Grant, paper title and abstract (300 words maximum) 

Important Dates.  Abstract submission deadline: August 31, 2026.  Notification of Acceptance: October 15, 2026

Registration, Logistics, and Travel Grant.  The conference registration fee will be waived for active ISCLH members. Accepted presenters must either demonstrate that they have active membership during the conference dates by April 1, 2027, or pay a one-time conference registration fee.

Participants are responsible for their own transportation and lodging. The co-organizer of the conference will help make reservations for 2 or 3 nights of hotel rooms for accepted participants at the participants’ cost. Participants are also welcome to make their own hotel arrangements according to their preferences.  Meals during the conference period will be provided by the co-organizer. 

We will provide a limited number of travel grants, available for graduate students and early career scholars who are ISCLH members and are presenting at the conference, to offset part of the travel costs. Priorities will be given to those who travel internationally or a long distance to Wuhan for the conference.

Contact.  Please direct any inquiries about the ISCLH 2027 Biennial Conference to isclh2027@gmail.com.

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

History at the Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Conference

The 23rd Annual Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Conference, to be held October 14–16, 2026, in
London, England, has at least two session of interest to legal historians.

Roman, English, and Other Legacies: The Role of History in Property Law

More than other areas of basic private law, property draws upon and reflects historical sources and practices in a wide range of contexts and applications.  This panel will explore how and why historical considerations shape contemporary property law.  Discussion will address the uses and limits of historical analysis in property theory and doctrine, including questions about continuity, adaptation, and divergence. The panel will also consider how appeals to history inform present-day debates about ownership, authority, and the evolution of property institutions.

Of Locke, Bentham, and Blackstone: English Contributions to Property’s Philosophical Foundations

This panel will discuss normative justifications for property law, with a special emphasis on the contributions of major English theorists.  It will explore how themes of labor, productivity, security, and legal order have shaped enduring understandings of ownership and its moral underpinnings.  The discussion will consider the continuing influence of writers like Locke, Bentham, and Blackstone on contemporary property theory, as well as the tensions among their approaches.

--Dan Ernst 

CFP: Inclusion, Exclusion, and Resistance in the Renaissance World

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

Inclusion, Exclusion, and Resistance in the Renaissance World, ca. 1300–1700

The history of rights in the Renaissance is also a history of their limits. The vocabularies of dignity, right, and resistance that Renaissance thinkers developed to claim freedom and constrain power were never universal; they were always already structured by categories that determined who belonged to the community (citizens, subjects), who was tolerated within it (religious minorities), and who was excluded from it altogether (enslaved persons, women). This session asks how those boundaries were drawn, contested, and redrawn across the Renaissance world — and how rights expanded for some while narrowing or vanishing for others.

Abstracts on any of the following are welcome: toleration and the limits of confessional belonging; colonial encounter and new categories of subjecthood; resistance theory and who may act in defense of a community; the jurisprudence of slavery and the boundaries of personhood; and the legal and political status of women, whose rights often narrowed even as others expanded.

Depending on the abstracts received, this session may take the form of a traditional panel of papers or a roundtable discussion for the 2027 Renaissance Society of America Conference in Philadelphia (March 11–13). Please indicate your preferred format, and feel free to describe your contribution as either a research paper or a set of reflections drawing on your current work.

Abstracts are invited from scholars across all relevant disciplines. Papers recovering neglected or unexpected traditions are especially welcome. Early-career scholars are encouraged to submit.

Please send a 300-word abstract and a short copy of your c.v. to karrsn@uc.edu 

Ancient Criminal Law: A Global Perspective

 [We have the following announcement.  DRE]

On June 24, 2026 (at 12pm Eastern), join us for an international workshop featuring contributors to a forthcoming Modern Criminal Law Review Special Issue on “Ancient Criminal Law: A Global Perspective,” guest edited by Clifford Ando (University of Chicago).

Recent years have witnessed several revolutions in the study of ancient law. These include new models for the study of ancient states, deriving in particular from comparative study; new interpretive emphasis on the limits of state infrastructural power; detailed study of the pluralist nature of legal authority in ancient empires in particular; and the extraordinary recovery of previously unknown documentary materials, especially in central Asian and East Asian contexts. This issue seeks to bring these new insights to bear on the study of criminal law in a global array of contexts:  the Ancient Near East, classical Athens, Qin and Han period China, the high Roman empire, and rabbinic Judaism.

Participants include: 

Clifford Ando, University of Chicago (moderator)
Beth Berkowitz, Columbia University
Ari Bryen, Vanderbilt University
Liang Cai, University of Notre Dame
Benjamin Gallant, Harvard University
Adriaan Lanni, Harvard University
Mark Letteney, University of Washington
Seth Richardson, University of Chicago
Andrew Wolpert, University of Florida

To join us for this free online event, please register here. Registration is encouraged, but not required; if you prefer to join the event directly, head over to the MCLR+ YouTube channel at the time of the event (please note the time zone). All attendees will have the opportunity to post questions and comments via YouTube live chat.

Weekend Roundup

• 
  ASLH President Mitra Sharafi discusses Fear of the False, "her new book about colonial South Asia's critical role in the development of forensic science" on Law in Action, the podcast of the University of Wisconsin Law School.   

• From the American Historical Association's Perspectives on History: John Fea (Messiah University) on "Historical Thinking, AI, and the Formation of College Students." 

• Another memorial to the late Gordon Wood, via History News Network x Bunk History. 

• "The History, Archives, and Records Preservation Project (HARPP) has released 'The Federal Assault on History: A Record of Executive Actions,' the first comprehensive report documenting and analyzing the Trump administration’s sweeping, coordinated effort since January 2025 to reshape how the American past is recorded, preserved, and shared with the public" (OAH).

• Steven Hahn reviews Born Equal: The Remaking of America’s Constitution, 1840–1920
  by Akhil Reed Amar (The Nation). 

• Via H-Disability: a memorial to Richard K. Scotch, author of multiple landmark histories of disability law and policy. 

• A call for papers for a conference on the Legal History of Tamilnadu.  Deadline for abstracts: June 15.  

• The conference "Rebellion, Resistance, and Refuge: Slavery and Border-Crossing during the American Revolution" will take place at UMass Amherst from Thursday, July 9 to Sunday, July 12, 2026 (H-Law).

• "Students from Stanford Law School’s Center for Racial Justice recently helped bring Wong [Kim Ark]’s story to life through a Bay Area public-history project that joins law, art, and community memory" (Stanford Lawyer).  

• U.S. Representative French Hill has introduced a bill to require the Department of the Interior to study the preservation and incorporation into the National Park System of the home of Scipio Jones (QQ) 

• A recording of the webinar, Equality and Exclusion: Israel's Constitutional Order and Its Palestinian-Arab Minority (1948–2025), with Ofra Bloch, moderated by Jon D. Michaels (UCLA).

•  ICYMI: Eric Segall asks that we "Please Stop Calling the Roberts Court Justices Originalists" (Dorf of Law). Jamelle Bouie discusses the so-called "Colored Conventions" of the nineteenth century in arguing that "The Supreme Court Doesn’t Own the Constitution" (NYT).

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

Legal History at the American Political History Conference, June 4-6

The American Political History Conference convenes this week in Washington, D.C., and the program includes many panels and events that may interest readers of this blog:

On Friday, June 5:

Roundtable: The Politics of Jurisdiction in 19th Century United States  

Moderator: Adam Rothman, Georgetown University

Panelists:

• Cynthia Nicoletti, University of Virginia
• Heather Carlquist Walser, Southern Methodist University
• Cooper Wingert, Fordham University
• Edward Green, Pennsylvania State University

The Politics of Bodies and Sexuality: From the Antebellum Era to Modern America 

Moderator: Cassandra Good, Marymount University

Panelists:

• Chris Del Santo, City University of New York. “The Politics of Bodies, Missing and Masonic: Gender and Visualizing Conspiracy in Antimasonry,
• 1826-1835.”
• Claire Simone Roth, University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill. “Spartan Mothers No More: Yeomen Women, Desertion, and the Collapse of the
• Confederate State.”
• Christen Hammock Jones, University of Pennsylvania. “Sufficiently Entangled: The Legal and Political ‘State’ of Reproductive Rights in the 1970s.”
• Eva Baylin, Vanderbilt University. “The Right to Sex: Pick-Up Artists and the Crisis of Masculinity.”

America at 250 Roundtable: Executive Power from the Founding Era to Trump 

Moderator: Lindsay Chervinsky, George Washington Presidential Library

Panelists:

• Julian Davis Mortenson, University of Michigan
• Jane Manners, Fordham Law School
• Garrett Graff, journalist
• Edward O. Frantz, University of Indianapolis
• Amanda Hollis-Brusky, Pomona College

America at 250 Roundtable: Debating Congress from the Founding Era to Today 

Moderator: Seth Blumenthal, Boston University

Panelists:

• Katlyn Carter, University of Notre Dame
• Daniel Peart, Queen Mary University of London
• Kevin M. Baron, Siena University
• Abe Silberstein, New York University
• Sarah Rowley, Depauw University

Representation and Voting Rights from Reconstruction to Today  

Moderator: Frank Towers, University of Calgary

Panelists:

• Eileen Cheng, Sarah Lawrence College. “Hijacking the Memory of Defeat: The Federalists and the Legacy of the Confederacy.”
• Alma Steingart, Columbia University. “The Mathematization of Representation: Rethinking United States Political Representation in the Twentieth
• Century.”
• Zachary Clary, Vanderbilt University. “‘You Can’t Kill an Idea’: The NAACP and the Martyrdom of Medgar Evers and Harry and Harriette Moore.”
• Robinson Woodward-Burns, Howard University. “Roll Back of State Constitutional Voting Rights, 1968-2025.” 

America at 250 Roundtable: The Past, Present, and Future of Judicial Supremacy 

Moderator: Gautham Rao, American University

Panelists:

• Jamelle Bouie, New York Times
• Stephen I. Vladeck, Georgetown University
• Nikolas Bowie, Harvard University
• Rachel Shelden, Pennsylvania State University
• Karen Tani, University of Pennsylvania

On Saturday, June 6: 

New History of Sex, Reproduction, and Anti-Discrimination Law in the 1970s and 1980s

Moderator: Sara Matthiesen, George Washington University

Panelists:

• Jennifer Holland, University of Oklahoma. “Lesbian-Homoville, CO: How Anti-Abortion Activists Started the Modern Anti-Queer Movement.”
• Sarah Milov, University of Virginia. “‘A Malformed Child Could Sue the Company’: Fetal Protection and the Specter of Childhood Cancer in the 1970s.”
• Karen Tani, University of Pennsylvania. “‘Productive Life or Tragedy’: Disability Rights, Deregulation, and Anti-Abortion Politics in the Reagan Era.” 

Roundtable: Political History as Legal History and Legal History as Political History 

Moderator: Matthew Lassiter, University of Michigan

Panelists:

• Sam Erman, University of Michigan
• Amanda Hughett, University of Illinois Springfield
• Kate Masur, Northwestern University
• Karen Tani, University of Pennsylvania

Book Roundtable: White Power: Policing American Slavery [by Gautham Rao]

Moderator: Adam Malka, University of Oklahoma

Panelists:

• Gautham Rao, American University
• Kellie Carter Jackson, Wellesley College
• Heather Ann Thompson, University of Michigan
• Anna O. Law, CUNY Brooklyn College
• Kevin Arlyck, Georgetown University 

-- Karen Tani  

CFP: European Society for Comparative Legal History

[We have the following CFP.  DRE]

Comparative Legal History: Transition and Transfers 

Lund: Lund University, June 21-23, 2027.  Deadline: October 31, 2026.

The organisers and the Executive Council of the European Society for Comparative Legal History are pleased to call for papers and posters for the upcoming European Society for Comparative Legal History 9th Biennial Conference to be held from 21 to 23 June 2027 at Lund University, Sweden.

The conference series started in Valencia (2010), followed by Amsterdam (2012), Macerata (2014), Gdansk (2016), Paris (2018), Lisbon (2022), Augsburg (2023), andSzeged (2025). The 2027 conference is hosted by the Olin Foundation for Legal History and supported by the Faculty of Law at Lund University.

The theme of the conference is ”Transitions and Transfers.” We are living in a time of unpredictability and changes, and this gives reason to pay attention to periods of transition in history. How and why did changes occur, who were the proponents and opponents? Changes in legal history have often had elements of transfer. Sometimes, legal needs have been met through drawing inspiration from other legal systems. On other occasions, legal rules have been imposed on other systems.

The papers, panels, and posters offered should deal with either transitions or transfers, or both. They should engage in dialogue with aspects of law across time and/or space that are of interest for comparative legal historians.

To offer a paper, please submit an abstract of up to 400 words. The abstract should include the title of your proposed paper and your personal data (full name, email address, work affiliation). Please also send a short CV (no more than 400 words). Anyone at any stage in their research career can offer a paper.

Abstracts will be assessed against: (1) the aim to have a diverse conference; (2) the novelty of the work; and (3) a professionally grounded proposal including a description ofthe methodology and most important sources, and a concise description of the expected research results.

It is also possible to submit a proposal for a complete panel. Panels normally consist of three papers. A panel proposal should – in addition to the abstracts and CVs of those who wish to present a paper in that panel – include an abstract for the entire panel, as well as a CV of the panel organizer.

Further, it is possible to submit a proposal for a poster. To offer a proposal for a poster, please submit an abstract of up to 400 words. The abstract should include the title of your project and your personal data (full name, email address, work affiliation). Please also send a short CV (no more than 400 words). 

Anyone at any stage in their research career can propose a poster. Accepted participants will be asked to submit to the organisers a PDF file in size A0 with the poster design, and the posters will be printed in Lund.

One author may only propose to give one paper or present one poster at the conference in order to allow as many people as possible to present their work.

All submissions – for papers, panels, and posters – should be in English and be sent to ESCLH2027@jur.lu.se, no later than 31 October 2026.

The list of accepted papers, panels, and posters will be announced by December 2026.

A conference website will be launched with further details of the conference in the autumn of 2026. The conference website will also contain information on the attendance fee for those not members of the ESCLH, and transport to and from Lund. The conference website will allow registration for the conference, starting early in 2027. Finally, the conference will be preceded by a PhD-workshop on 21 June 2027. Further information about the workshop will also be published in the autumn of 2026.

Queering Private Law Conference

[We have the following announcement.  DRE] 

Registration now open for the Bentham House: Queering Private Law Conference [sponsored by the] UCL Faculty of Laws, September 3-4, 2026.  The conference will cover a wide range of private law topics, including contracts, torts, property, IP, commercial, trust, children, families, conflict of laws, and legal pedagogy.  Keynote Speakers: Darren Rosenblum (McGill), Sonia Katyal (UC Berkeley), and Nicholas Allen KC (Deputy High Court Judge; 29 Bedford Row).  Please register [here].  The conference sessions are designed to support professional learning and development. UK-based legal professionals may be able to record attendance at eligible sessions toward their CPD or continuing competence requirements, subject to the rules of their relevant regulator. Participants are responsible for determining eligibility and maintaining their own records.

Private law presents itself as neutral and technical, a body of rules that simply reflects how the world is. But its foundational concepts carry assumptions about whose relationships, identities, and lives count as normal. This conference brings queer theory into conversation with private law, asking what is revealed when we take those assumptions seriously and refuse to treat them as inevitable. It gathers scholars committed to exposing the heteronormative and cisnormative underpinnings of private law doctrine, and to asking how queer theory can transform private law and our assumptions about it.

The Fine Script: Legal Marginalia, 1100-1700

We have word of The Fine Script, a conference exploring comparative approaches to legal marginalia circulating in Europe and the Middle East between 1100 and 1700, will be held on Monday, August 31 and Tuesday, September 1, from 10 AM-3:30 PM.  The conference will" connect the present with the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period—placing Ireland within Europe, and Europe in its relationship with the Middle East and the Byzantine Sphere."  It can be attended in-person in Paris at the Centre Culturel Irlandais or online (the zoom link will be circulated via email prior to the event).

--Dan Ernst.  Schedule after the jump. 

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.

CFP: Annual Forum of Young Legal Historians

[Via ESCLH Blog, we have the following CFP.  SRE]

Annual Forum of Young Legal Historians: “Values in law through the ages,” Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan

Legal traditions, community, harmonization and integration have been the hallmarks of the Association's Annual Forums for 29 years. Values in law, which is the main topic of the 30th anniversary edition of the Meeting of Young Legal Historians, is an excellent opportunity to look at the issues discussed at previous forums from a wider perspective. The legal maxim Ubi societas ibi ius, which dates back to ancient times, is a simple affirmation of common sense: wherever there are people, wherever there is a community, wherever relationships and bonds are formed, there must be a certain order, which is referred to as ius — law. The conference “Values in law through the ages”, organized by the Faculty of Law and Administration and the Faculty of History of the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, will be a space for discussion on the transdisciplinary issues of axiological matters present in various cultures and legal systems.

Conference theme.  We are planning to include various contexts for the use of the main topic at the conference. We invite you to submit proposals for papers from various fields of law and other fields related to law, clearly linked to historical and legal analysis and the topic of the conference. The proposed topics, which are not exhaustive, include in particular issues such as principles of law, rule of law, legal unlawfulness, revolutions in law, crises of values in law, inter-systemic and intra-systemic contrasts of values, history of human rights, theoretical concepts of values in law or constitutional protection of values.

Requirements for submitting abstracts.  We invite submissions on essentially any aspect of the values in the legal history. Authors may approach the topic dogmatically, historically or comparatively, they may focus on a specific period and place or present general reflections on the axiology of law in a historical context. Authors are encouraged to use innovative approaches and transdisciplinary research.

If you would like to present a paper during the conference, please send an application including an abstract of not more than 300 words and your CV to aylhforum2026@amu.edu.pl before 30 April 2026. Acceptance letters will be sent out by the end of May. Please send documents in PDF format.

In justified individual cases, the forum's scientific committee may consider abstracts earlier. To do so, please contact the organizing committee, indicating “EARLY APPLICATION” in the subject line of your message.

Presentations have to be in English and should not exceed 15 minutes each. Since one of the primary goals of the conference is to allow young researchers to get to know each other personally, we only accept presentations in person.

Publication.  We intend to publish the presented papers. The organizing committee intends to resume publication with Peter Lang Publishing, which was associated with the first editions of our forums. Depending on the number of interested parties and financial possibilities, we plan to publish another volume of the Yearbook of Young Legal History, or a monograph, or a special issue in a Polish academic journal. The related details will be sent in advance to the accepted participants.

Conference fee.  Two types of conference fees are anticipated for this year's forum:

1. The conference fee without post-conference publication costs is 200 € and does not include travel or accommodation costs.
2. The conference fee including post-conference publication costs is 300 € and also does not include travel or accommodation costs.

After the announcement of the abstract selection results on May 31, 2026, the Organizing Committee will contact the selected participants with further information on registration by paying the conference fee.

Other information.  The Forum will be in English, and each paper presentation should not exceed 15 minutes, so there is time for discussions in the last part of each panel. 

The submission deadline is 30th April 2026. Abstracts received after the submission deadline will be declined. Please indicate in your application the type of participation (without publication or with publication).

Keep in mind that registration is limited to a number of people. Therefore, early registration is strongly recommended!

Event organization.  The forum will last four days: the first day will be a welcome day with the participation of keynote speakers and a special guest, the next two days will feature many parallel sessions, and on the last day we are planning a jubilee meeting on organizational matters of the Association for Young Legal Historians.

Our meeting will take place in Poznan, the capital of Greater Poland. The city can be reached by plane or other means of transport (train, bus). We recommend planning your travel and accommodation in advance. The organizing committee will provide recommendations in this regard at a later date.

We look forward to receiving your abstracts and we will uncompromisingly endeavor to provide a conference that is both academically and socially fulfilling. We wish you all the best for this time!

Organizing Committee:

Dawid Szulc, MA, Department of Government Systems Studies and Political and Legal Thought – Committee Chair
Patryk Mackowiak, MA, Department of Source Analysis and Auxiliary Historical Sciences – Vice Committee Chair
Fatma Mejri, MA, Department of Government Systems Studies and Political and Legal Thought
Maria Kola, MA, Department of Roman Law, Legal Traditions and Cultural Heritage Law
Szymon Siuda, MA, Department of Public Economic Law
Kamil Gawel, MA, Department of Medical and Pharmaceutical Law at the Poznan University of Medical Sciences

CFP: Forum on International Legal History & Philosophy

[We have the following CFP for a Forum on International Legal History & Philosophy at the Chanakya National Law University in Patna, India.  DRE]

This Call for ideas (in the form of detailed abstracts) invites scholars working in International Law, Constitutional Law, and Legal Philosophy, whether individually or through interdisciplinary approaches. The contours of the forum are outlined below in two overlapping and porous themes.

Aims.  We intend to stimulate discourse on international legal history and theory employing regional and archival lens. We expect a rough sketch of your clearly formulated idea to make such stimulations. We aim to discuss the vitality of your research ideas for them to be transformed into future research (beyond this forum). 

Thematic Background: Legal History.  The word 'civilization' has re-entered academic discourse, only this time it is the East which is assertive of it. India is asserting its civilizational heritage by calling itself the 'mother of democracy'. However, the evidence of it (for example, Sangha) points more towards democratic values, like public participation, than a political system of democracy. Alongside this civilizational assertion is a renewed emphasis on "decolonizing" India, including in the field of law, though both the efficacy of these efforts and the normative framework of "decolonization" itself remain contested. While these debates have gained traction in International Relations (see the March 2023 issue of International Affairs on "India as a 'civilizational state'"), their implications for international law, legal history, and legal philosophy remain underexplored.

This Call invites scholars of international law, legal history, and legal philosophy to intervene in this debate through a focused regional and archival lens. While earlier works, such as C. H. Alexandrowicz's discussion of the Mandala system situating Kautilya within the Law of Nations (1965), have addressed cognate themes, this project concentrates specifically on Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, including their pre-modern formations. Thus, Pataliputra, Azimabad, and Patna, while essentially the same site, retain their individuality and continuity across time and space. Contributions on neglected princely states and provinces such as Arah, Awadh, Benaras, Baksar, Betiyah, Champaran, Darbhanga, Sasaram, Sagauli, among others, are especially welcome. 

Many of these entities were classified as "Zemindari estates" rather than "Princely states." Colonial Bihar thus reveals how international law sustained empire not by outright denial of sovereignty, but by withholding international legal personality from polities that governed in every meaningful sense. The contemporary relevance of these discriminatory practices persists, as illustrated by the 1st and the 26th Amendment to the Indian Constitution, land reform Act of Bihar and U.P. 1950, State of Bihar v Radha Krishna Singh & Ors (1983) and The Vesting of Bettiah Raj Properties Act, 2024.

The Call also encourages works on figures such as Veer Kunwar Singh and Begum Hazrat Mahal, particularly research drawing on archives from the National Archives of India, Uttar Pradesh State Archives, and the Khuda Baksh Oriental Library (Patna). Finally, it seeks renewed readings of colonial constitutional instruments, such as the Pitt's India Act (1784) and the Government of India Act (1833), and the constitution-like document drafted during the early days of the 1857 revolt.

The Call, therefore, asks: How does colonial legal invisibility structure postcolonial international law? What legal techniques differentiated Zemindari estates and Princely states? How do colonial legal categories shape postcolonial constitutional disputes? What do colonial legislations tell us about the constitutional origins of international law? How did British colonial rule transform indigenous sovereignty into quasi-sovereign authority without formal annexation (of places like Betiyah-Raj and Darbhanga-Raj)? 
           
Thematic Background: Indian Legal Philosophy.  A related interest of this call is Indian (legal) philosophy. While no Indian philosophical school explicitly identifies itself as "legal", the Nyaya tradition, through its sustained engagement with Pramana, Prameya, Tarka, Nirnaya, Sabda, Artha etc., offers a systematic framework grounded in logic and epistemology.

This project is interested in works exploring the connections between the Nyaya school and decolonization and retains the regional focus. Gotama (or Aksapada Gautama) who composed Nyaya Sutras, Panini (composer of Astadhyayi), Gangesa (pioneer of Navya-Nyaya branch), Udayanacarya (defended Nyaya school against Buddhist critiques), Vachaspati Misra (Critique of Nyaya school), Kautilya (whose thoughts on Anviksiki was used by Gotama for Nyaya school) were all either based in the Bihar region or wrote their works here. 

We, therefore, encourage scholars to explore the fields of Nyaya, Vaisesika, Navya- Nyaya (through works of Gangesa), and of Panini's Astadhyay1. While Panini tells us how reasoning works Nyaya explains why reasoning works. Scholars working exclusively in the field of philosophy, and those working on legal philosophy are welcome to respond to this call.

Participation details.  If your research aligns with either of these themes or questions, we invite you to participate in this Forum, as:

1.    Presenters.  If you would like to present your research, you are requested to submit a 500-word abstract, clearly setting out

• the central theme(s) of your research, 
• your core research question(s),  
• three to five literatures you are engaging with,
• your name, position and affiliation. 

We will select abstracts based upon the novelty, strength and coherence. The selected participants will then be required to submit a preliminary draft of not more than 1500 words one week before the Forum, i.e. on 8th April 2026 for thorough academic engagement with your research. Participants will have ten minutes to present their work at the forum. 

There will be no sections or panels at the forum. Each participant will be expected to attend all the presentations. This is aimed at breaking departmental barriers and fostering interdisciplinary engagements from which both lawyers, historians and philosophers can gain.

2.    Engaged Listeners.  Scholars from the field of law, history and philosophy (including teachers, PhD Scholars) and students (including graduate and post graduate students) who are interested in understanding and potentially developing future work on these themes with us are invited to join the forum as Engaged Listeners. Engaged listeners will have access to all presentations at the forum and will have chance to interact with the presenters within and outside the forum, providing an opportunity to refine their research interests and to contribute to the project in the future.

For participating as engaged listeners, individuals are requested to submit a 200-word statement outlining their reasons and motivations for participating, and their primary areas of interest (identifying two to three such areas), and their name, position and affiliation. 

Presenters and Engaged Listeners should send their abstracts to ilhilpf@gmail.com.

Date and Venue.  10 AM to 5 PM, 15 April 2026 at Chanakya National Law University, Patna, Bihar, India.

Key dates:
15 March 2026.  Submission of abstracts (by presenters) & interests (by engaged listeners)   
25 March 2026   Communication of selection (for presenters & listeners)   
5 April 2026       Registration   
8 April 2026       Research outline submission (by presenters)  
 

Registration details:  
For presenters:

• For undergraduate, postgraduate students and PhD scholars: Rs. 500/- 
• For teachers and practitioners: Rs. 1000/- 

There is no participation fee for the engaged listeners.

The Project is being led by Aman Kumar, PhD Candidate at the Australian National University, Canberra. The Forum is convened by Dr Swati Singh Parmar (DNLU, Jabalpur) and Dr Aditya Roy (CNLU, Patna).

The Julien Mezey Dissertation Award

[We have the following announcement.  DRE]

The Association for the Study of Law, Culture, and the Humanities is excited to announce that we are accepting submissions for the Julien Mezey Dissertation Award. This annual prize is awarded to the dissertation that most promises to enrich and advance interdisciplinary scholarship at the intersection of law, culture and the humanities.

The Association seeks the submission of outstanding work from a wide variety of perspectives, including but not limited to law and cultural studies, law and critical race studies, law and gender and sexuality, legal theory and environmentalism, law and literature, law and psychoanalysis, law and visual studies, legal history, legal theory and jurisprudence. Scholars completing humanities-oriented dissertations in SJD and related programs, as well as those earning PhDs, are encouraged to submit their work. Applicants eligible for the 2026 award must have defended their dissertations successfully between March 2025 and March 2026.

The Association will cover the Mezey Prize winner’s travel and lodging costs to our annual meeting at the DePaul University College of Law in Chicago, Illinois.  Nominations for the 2026 award must be received on or before March 15, 2026.  For submission instructions, please see our website.

Ancient Criminal Law: A Global Perspective

Modern Criminal Law Review has announced Ancient Criminal Law: A Global Perspective, an international workshop to be held at 12 PM ET on June 24, 2026, featuring contributors a special issue, guest edited by Clifford Ando, University of Chicago.  Other participants include Beth Berkowitz, Columbia University; Ari Bryen, Vanderbilt University; Ernest Caldwell, St. Mary’s, London; Benjamin Gallant, Harvard University; Adriaan Lanni, Harvard University; Mark Letteney, University of Washington; Seth Richardson, University of Chicago; and Andrew Wolpert, University of Florida.  The organizers add:

To join us for this free online event, please register here. Registration is encouraged, but not required; if you prefer to join the event directly, head over to the MCLR+ YouTube channel at the time of the event (please note the time zone). All attendees will have the opportunity to post questions and comments via YouTube live chat.

--Dan Ernst

Notre Dame Graduate Legal History Colloquium

We have word that the Notre Dame Graduate Legal History Colloquium will reconvene on March 7, 2026, from 10 AM to 3 PM on the Notre Dame Law School campuses in South Bend, Indiana, and Chicago, Illinois. The organizers write that "All students and faculty, regardless of institutional affiliation, are welcome," that all "presenters and attendees will receive complimentary lunch and refreshments," and that virtual opportunities to participate will be available for those unable to attend in-person.  

Those wishing to attend should register here, a form that reproduces the schedule for March 7 at right.  More information about the Colloquium can be learned here or via email to Dennis Wieboldt at dwiebold@nd.edu. 

--Dan Ernst

CFP: 6th Asian Legal History Conference

[We have the following CFP.  DRE]

The Faculty of Law, Multimedia University, Malaysia is organizing the Sixth Asian Legal History Conference in Melaka, Malaysia on 6–7 August 2026. The conference is supported by the Asian Legal History Association. Previous Asian Legal History Conferences have been hosted, organized and supported by the University of Law at Hue University, the Faculty of Law at Thammasat University, the Centre for Asian Legal Studies at the National University of Singapore, the Faculty of Law at Doshisha University in Japan, and the Faculty of Law at The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

The conference aims to bring together a diverse, interdisciplinary group of scholars, researchers and graduate students to share their research findings on topics relating to legal history in Asia.

Submissions on any subject, providing they relate to legal history and fall into at least one of the categories specified below, will be considered. Among other themes, the organizers encourage papers on subjects such as:

• The historical evolution of common law, civil law, and socialist law traditions
• The history of law and empire
• The history of international law
• Transnational connections in legal history
• The history of law, gender and sexuality
• Legal pluralism and jurisdictional clashes
• Customary law and religious law
• The history of law schools and of the formation of the judiciary and of members of the legal profession.

The conference will be in person. Applicants will be responsible for their own transportation and accommodation costs.

Proposals may be for individual papers or panels. Panel proposals are particularly welcome, as the field of legal history is wide, and while the organizers will endeavor to cluster like papers together, thematic, geographic and temporal diversity of topics inevitably means panels composed of individually-submitted papers will cover only loosely-related subject matters.

Individual abstract proposals should include a 150-300 word abstract and the corresponding author’s contact information. These should be submitted through [this Microsoft Form].

In addition, participants may make a panel proposal. Panel proposals should include a 150–300 word description of the panel, and the title of 3 to 5 individual papers, contact information for the panel chair. The abstract for the 3 to 5 individual papers in a designated panel need to be submitted through [this Microsoft Form].

Applications are due by midnight (Malaysia time) on 1 April 2026.  Decisions on acceptance of proposals will be made on a rolling basis. Interested parties are advised to submit a proposal as early as possible.  The venue of the conference will be in the city of Melaka, Malaysia and the registration fee will be informed later.  Full paper will be published in the Asian Journal of Law and Policy (MyCite-indexed) and other journals.

Further information and clarifications may be obtained by email to alhc2026@mmu.edu.my.

CFP: Four Nations Law and the Humanities

[We have the following CFP for The Four Nations Law and the Humanities Forums.  DRE]

We are excited to announce the calls for papers for Four Nations Law and the Humanities Forums 2026!

Located around the country during 2026, the forums will provide an important space to develop research excellence at the intersections of law and the humanities, and foster intellectual community, supporting early-career scholars. Hosted at the University of Glasgow, Queen’s University Belfast, University of Warwick, and Cardiff University, these workshops are a series held across the four UK nations, in collaboration with the Law and the Humanities Hub (LHub) at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies.

The forums will workshop ECRs’ work in progress and offer a rigorous context addressing the nature of interdisciplinary research in law and the humanities and its paths of development.

Criteria for Selection.  Contributions developed by early-career scholars will be selected based on their demonstration of excellence in scholarship and practice. Proposed participation may be written papers or creative work (in visual, sonic, film, etc. form), at any intersection within Law and the Humanities, including research that connects law with history, philosophy, literature, art, performance, linguistics, cultural and media studies, creative practice, and other humanistically-informed fields and methods.
     
Eligibility: The forums are open to individuals currently pursuing a PhD or DPhil, or who are within seven years of having completed their PhD, with due accommodation for career breaks, who are actively carrying out research in Law and the Humanities.

Forums Dates.  The dates of the workshops are as follows:

21st May - University of Glasgow
25th June - Queen’s University Belfast
2nd  July - Cardiff University
17th July - University of Warwick 

The workshops will bring law and humanities scholarship to wider audiences through the engagement of legal scholars as well as humanities scholars, ensuring that the research is not confined to law or the humanities.

Forums Format.  A limited number of works in progress will be selected for each forum. Each forum will be based on pre-reading of all papers and works by all attendees, and will include:

A friendly opening session;

Workshop sessions of 45 minutes dedicated to the submitted papers/works. Each session will include an invited senior commentator and an open discussion addressing subject matter, method, interdisciplinarity, and creativity. The authors/creators will not be expected to present.  The discussion will include all participants in conversational style (not as a Q&A).

The scholarship, creative practice, and networking will be fostered and supported through the participating institutions and LHub, via the Four Nations website, a concluding online plenary, and associated networks such as Legal Humanities Association and the Art/Law Network.

Submissions.  Please submit a CV; statement of interest in the forum, including an explanation of your eligibility (up to 250 words); and a 500-1,200-word proposal for a paper, or in the case of an artwork submission, the work and a 300-word description. Please also indicate which location you wish to attend.  

If accepted, submission of the completed paper will be expected a month prior to the chosen workshop, and should be up to 6000 words, or the completed artwork if non-text. 

Proposal Submission Deadlines.  Dates for the submission are as below.  

28th February - University of Glasgow
31st March - Queen’s University Belfast
30th April - Cardiff University and University of Warwick

NB: Location preferences may not always be possible.  Please send the above to Lucy.FinchettMaddock@gold.ac.uk and Lhub@sas.ac.uk. 

Completed Works Deadlines for Accepted Proposals:

21st May - University of Glasgow
25th May - Queen’s University Belfast
2nd June - Cardiff University
17th June - University of Warwick

For further information, please do contact Lucy.FinchettMaddock@gold.ac.uk and LHub@sas.ac.uk.

With thanks to funding from IALS LHub, Learned Society Wales, and University of Dundee, for their additional funding and support.

The Declaration of Independence in Global Context

This year's Harmsworth Conference of the Rothermere American Institute at the University of Oxford is The Meanings of Independence: The American Declaration in Global Context, 1776-1826.  It meets March, 19-20, 2026, and is convened by Eliga Gould, University of New Hampshire, and Patrick Griffin, Notre Dame University.

The Declaration of Independence, whose 250th anniversary Americans will observe in 2026, is the United States’ founding text, but it was also a transformational international text. Although Congress’s main purpose was to declare thirteen of Britain’s American colonies to be free and independent states, the Declaration’s words and example spoke to audiences well beyond the new union’s borders. Convened by Eliga Gould and Patrick Griffin, Harmsworth Professors, respectively, for 2025-26 and 2022-23, this conference will explore some of the implications of that wider message. In addition to the response to the Declaration in Britain, Ireland, and Europe, we anticipate presentations that focus on North America’s Indian country, Haiti and the Caribbean, Sierra Leone and West Africa, and China and British India. Participants will be encouraged to approach their topic from the broadest possible social and cultural contexts, paying particular attention to how categories of race and class, as well as gender and sexuality, mediated what independence meant. As the choice of 1826 as the conference’s endpoints, we hope to include presentations on the Spanish American Revolutions that extended the quest for independence throughout the Western Hemisphere. 1826 was also the year that two of the main architects of American independence, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, died, both on July 4.

Annette Gordon-Reed, Harvard University, will deliver the keynote.

 --Dan Ernst