Many thanks to everyone featured in our Scholar Spotlight series on European legal history over the past month. Here's the list of interviews in the order they were posted, for your convenience:
Showing posts with label European legal history; interview. Show all posts
Showing posts with label European legal history; interview. Show all posts
Thursday, March 21, 2019
Thursday, March 14, 2019
Scholar Spotlight: Ada Kuskowski
Today's Scholar Spotlight features Ada Kuskowski, University of Pennsylvania. Earlier in this series, we noted that only three of the fifty contributors to the recently published Oxford Handbook of European Legal History were women. Like Women Also Know History, this interview series aims to showcase female scholars and their work. Its special focus is scholars of European legal history.
Ada Kuskowski is an assistant professor at the University of
Pennsylvania. She lives in Philadelphia, PA, United States.
Websites:
Alma maters:
B.A., History, McGill University, 2001.
B.C.L. and L.L.B. (Bachelor of Common Law and
Bachelor of Civil Law), McGill University Faculty of Law, 2005.
M.A., History, Cornell University, 2008.
M.A., History, Cornell University, 2008.
Ph.D., History, Cornell University, 2013.
Fields of interest:
Fields of interest:
Legal History and Culture, Medieval History, French History,
Social Histories of Knowledge, Vernacular Writing and Translation, Court
Culture, Colonization and Colonial law.
Describe your
career path. What led you to where you are today?
I fell in love with history in my undergraduate classes at
McGill University, especially the classes on late antiquity with Elizabeth DePalma
Digeser. This was when I realized that I preferred the puzzle of messy periods
of transition and change to classic or golden ages. However, I went to law
school afterwards, partially out of a perceived need for a “real” profession
and partially because Quebec tuition rates for Quebec residents make it
possible to go to law school to learn and to think without the burden of great
debt and a future of corporate-law work to pay them off.
Studying common law and civil law side by side made clear to
what extent law is both a cultural and historical product. I was able to
explore that in various independent studies that ranged from the Roman law of
treason, to cultural property law debates to histories of codification thanks
to generous mentors, namely Nicholas Kasirer, Blaine Baker and Daniel Jutras. I
also minored in Classics to pick up the languages to apply to graduate school,
because I had decided to see whether I could make a career out of my real
passion. I then went to graduate school at Cornell and ended up with a
dissertation based on texts I had discovered in a dusty basement section of my
law school library. At Cornell, I was the extraordinary beneficiary of the
intellectual dynamism and true generosity of Paul Hyams, Bernadette Meyler,
Duane Copris and Eric Rebillard. How great a part the human chain plays in
academic careers.
What do you like
the most about where you live and work?
Penn is full of wonderful historians, medievalists and legal
historians and I feel very lucky to be part of such a vigorous and engaging
intellectual community. The legal historians have a group called “Writer’s
Block,” run by Sophia Lee, Sally Gordon and Serena Mayeri that is especially
fruitful for workshopping current work. The library and its fantastic curators are
also a terrific resource. My class on the history of property was there yesterday
and Dr. Mitch Fraas, senior curator, assembled various delights for the
students, including a thirteenth-century dowry agreement, a sixteenth-century
will, and a nineteenth-century sheriff’s sale broadsheet from Philadelphia.
What projects are
you currently working on?
I am currently completing a book
manuscript titled Law in the Vernacular: Composing Customary Law in
Thirteenth-Century France.
This cultural history of legal
knowledge explores the move to set a previously oral custom into writing. This
shift from oral to written has been treated legalistically by scholars who
describe custom as “crystallizing” and being “set in writing” seemingly on its
own. Focusing on the coutumiers,
texts written in thirteenth-century Northern France to describe the customs and
procedures of secular courts, I argue that these early texts of written custom
were authored compositions that changed the world of law.
Their
authors chose to write custom in the vernacular, the language of lived law and
everyday life, rather than in Latin, the language of the church, universities,
and written record until that point. This opened the conceptual world of law to
lay people and changed custom from a community practice to an erudite form of
vernacular knowledge. This form of knowledge was not aiming at petrifying the
“good old law” but at shaping a new intellectual discipline for a new type of
jurist, one who knew custom and thought in the vernacular.
This legal
history is thus also a history of the construction and transmission of
knowledge, the development of sophisticated modes of thinking outside of the
universities, and the effect of the technology of writing on the history of lay
thought and institutions.
Tuesday, March 12, 2019
Scholar Spotlight: Catharine MacMillan
Today's Scholar Spotlight features Catharine MacMillan, King's College London. We noted earlier in this series that only three of the fifty contributors to the recently published Oxford Handbook of European Legal History were women. Like Women Also Know History, this interview series aims to showcase female scholars and their work. Its special focus is scholars of European legal history.
Catharine
MacMillan is a Professor of Private Law at the Dickson Poon School of Law,
King’s College London. She lives in London, England.
Alma
maters: BA (History, University of Victoria), LLB (Queen’s University, Canada,
LLM (University of Cambridge)
Fields of
interest: intellectual and doctrinal legal history, legal biography, legal
history of the British Empire, English contract law
Describe
your career path. What led you to where
you are today?: A fortunate stroke of serendipity took me to legal
academia. From early childhood I had
wanted to be a lawyer. When I graduated from high school in Canada, I chose
history as my first degree subject at the University of Victoria. History as a subject was all-encompassing, in
my view, and thus ideal for a curious teenager.
This was followed by law at Queen’s University. I returned to my home province and clerked
for the Chief Justice of British Columbia, completed my articles at Davis and
Company in Vancouver and was duly called to the Bar of British Columbia. I then had an opportunity to undertake an LLM
at the University of Cambridge (Gonville and Caius College); having received my
degree I returned to my firm and a practice in commercial litigation. It did not last for long as family reasons
brought me back to England. In London I
took up what began as a short term position in the law school at Queen Mary
University of London. I discovered a
love of academic life and spent over two decades at Queen Mary before taking up
a position at the University of Reading as a Professor of Law and Legal
History. I came to the Dickson Poon
School of Law at King’s College London in 2016.
What do you
like the most about where you live and work?
I love living in London – every day is different. The Dickson Poon School of Law is at Somerset
House on the Strand, right in the very heart of London It is a wonderful place to examine the
richness, diversity and complexity of the human condition. And there are the added benefits of
libraries, museums, galleries, theatre, and music all within an easy walk. To paraphrase Samuel Johnson, one never
tires of its attractions.
What
projects are you currently working on? I
have two large projects that I have been working on. The first is a legal
biography of the life of Judah Benjamin, one-time Louisiana senator,
Confederate Secretary of State and ultimately, a leading QC in London. I am curious not only about Benjamin’s life
but the unique contributions he brought to legal development. The second is a consideration of the
functioning of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as an imperial
court. I also have a number of smaller,
discrete projects which are ongoing. At
present these include examinations of the contractual doctrines of frustration,
and of mistake and on modern non-disclosure agreements.
How have
your interests evolved since finishing your studies? Because my studies were directed at becoming
a practising lawyer in one sense my interests have changed enormously. In another sense they have not changed at
all. I took the view early in law school
that legal materials, institutions and actors were fragments from which an
historical explanation of the law could be created. An academic career allows me to gather
together these fragments and to try to construct explanations.
What’s the
most fascinating thing you’ve ever found at the archives? This is a really hard question
to answer. The document that I have found
that has probably had the most profound impact upon me was one I found
accidentally in the search for something else: a contract by which an enslaved person was sold by one party to
another. It brought home to me something
of the painful and brutal reality of slavery.
Is there an
article, book, film, website, etc. that you would recommend to LHB readers? I recommend Garrow’s Law, a legal period
drama based loosely around the eighteenth century barrister, William
Garrow. It draws neatly upon various
legal history sources to bring the subject matter alive for students (and other
viewers!).
What have you
found to be the most surprising thing about academic life? I have been amazed
by all of the wonderful and engaging people I’ve met from around the world.
Photo caption: Catharine MacMillan at Judah Benjamin's grave in Paris.
Thursday, February 28, 2019
Scholar Spotlight: Tessa Leesen
Our Scholar Spotlight series continues, today featuring Tessa Leesen, Tilburg University. In our earlier interviews, we noted that only three of the fifty contributors to the recently published Oxford Handbook of European Legal History were women. Like Women Also Know History, this Scholar Spotlight series aims to showcase female scholars and their work. Its special focus is scholars of European legal history.
Tessa Leesen is lecturer in the field of legal history and vice-dean at University
College Tilburg of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Tilburg University in the
Netherlands. She lives in Belgium.
Alma maters: BA History, University of Leuven, MA History, University of Leuven,
PhD Roman Law, Tilburg University.
Fields of
interest: legal history, Roman law, history and rhetoric.
Describe your
career path. What led you to where you are today? The Classical World has always sparked my interest. By studying Latin
and Greek in secondary school, I was able to read the Iliad and Odyssee of
Homer, Cicero’s political and judicial speeches and the conquest of Gaul by C.
Julius Caesar, who famously claimed that of all Gauls the Belgians are
bravest, in the original language. My
choice of university studies was crystal clear from the beginning. I went to
study history, majoring in ancient history, at the University of Leuven. My
graduate research focused on the intrastate relations between Sparta, Athens
and Thebes in the aftermath of the Peloponnesian War. After finishing my
academic teacher’s training at University of Leuven, I embarked on my PhD at
Tilburg University in the Netherlands to examine the impact of classical rhetoric
on the development of Roman law. Already during my PhD, I started to teach
history and legal history classes. Afterwards, I became program director of the
major law in the Bachelor’s program of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Tilburg
University. That position paved the way for my current position as vice-dean of
University College Tilburg.
What do you
like the most about where you live and work? Unlike my colleagues at UC Tilburg, who all live in one of the
magnificent historical city centers the Netherlands have to offer, I live in a
small village on the countryside in the midst of plantations of fruit trees.
However, I love to be surrounded by nature and the tranquility of the region,
even though it means that I have to commute more than most of my colleagues.
What I love about my work is the opportunity it offers to continue to
read and learn more about historical developments in the field of law, my
colleagues, who challenge and inspire me, and the fact that I can (modestly)
contribute to the intellectual formation of generations of students.
What projects
are you currently working on? Currently, I am coordinating an educational project, for which I
received NWO funding: ‘The Resilience Project: Fail, Fail Again, Fail Better’.
This project aims to enhance the resilience of our students at the University
College of Tilburg, who struggle with stress and the high demands of academia,
to normalize failure as an integral part of any learning process and of life
itself and to critically reflect on the
importance attached to individual competitiveness in education and society.
Have your
interests evolved since finishing your studies? Doing my PhD in the field of Roman private law and becoming program
director of the major law in the Liberal Arts and Sciences program sparked my
interest for the field of law.
What’s the most
fascinating thing you’ve ever found at [the archives/in your primary sources]? When analyzing the school controversies between the Sabiniani and the
Proculiani as described in the Institutiones
of Gaius, I was able to demonstrate that the jurists/heads of the schools made
use of rhetoric and of the argumentative theory of topoi (as described in Cicero’s Topica)
to find adequate arguments in support of their view. Since the jurists used
rhetoric to construct specific argumentations for each separate case, I was
able to refute the overall assumption in modern literature that there is no
coherent theory behind the positions of the two schools.
Is there an
article, book, film, website, etc. that you would recommend to LHB readers? A beautifully written and compelling book is ‘Congo: The Epic History of
a People’, written by the historian David van Reybrouck. The book traces the
history of the Congolese people from pre-colonial times to Belgian presence in
the region, when the Belgian king Leopold II turned the huge piece of African
land into his personal property and Belgium subsequently colonized the
territory, the struggle for independence, Mubutu’s dictatorship and beyond. Van
Reybrouck manages to write a page-turner on the topic, evoking feelings of astonishment
and indignation amongst his readers.
What have you
found to be the most surprising thing about academic life? I found out that academic life is an enduring quest for truth that
generations of scholars have participated in, but that continuously questioning
truth and knowledge are essential parts of that quest.
Thursday, February 21, 2019
Scholar Spotlight: Susanne Pohl-Zucker
Our Scholar Spotlight series continues with Susanne Pohl-Zucker, independent scholar. In our earlier interviews, we noted that only three of the fifty contributors to the recently published Oxford Handbook of European Legal History were women. Like Women Also Know History, this Scholar Spotlight series aims to showcase female scholars and their work. Its special focus is scholars of European legal history.
Susanne Pohl-Zucker is an independent scholar who lives in Oppenheim,
Germany.
Website: https://independentresearcher.academia.edu/SusannePohlZucker
Alma mater: MA 1991, Ph.D. 1997,
University of Michigan
Fields of interest: History of premodern
criminal justice in Europe, legal procedure, ius commune, dispute resolution, law and emotions, disability
history
Describe your career path. What led you to
where you are today? My fascination with premodern history started when I read the novel
"The Name of the Rose" as a teenager. I subsequently became a history
major at the University of Tübingen, Germany, although an exchange program
offered me the opportunity to move to the US and study at the University of
Michigan in Ann Arbor. I loved the different teaching methods in the US, and I
was excited about my first exposure to anthropological and cultural approaches
towards medieval and early modern European history. Courses with Diane Hughes, Thomas
A. Green and William I. Miller awakened my interest in legal history, especially
the development of centralized criminal legal systems during the course of the
early modern period. I applied to stay in the program and after obtaining my Ph.D.,
I first taught as a lecturer at Eastern Michigan University and then as an assistant
professor at Cornell University in the field of early modern Europe. Family
reasons led me back to Germany in 2003. After teaching as a lecturer at the
universities of Tübingen and Frankfurt for a couple of years, I needed to find
ways to adjust my work schedule to circumstances at home. I am now a part-time
member of the pedagogical staff at a local learning center for people with
cognitive disabilities and write about history as an independent researcher.
What do you like the most about where you
live and work? The town in which I live is small, but the larger cities of Mainz,
Frankfurt and Mannheim are close by. I often take advantage of the research
opportunities that the universities and archives of these cities offer. I enjoy
living in a rural area and like cycling through the surrounding vineyards or
taking walks along the nearby river.
What projects are you currently working
on? I am in between projects, but I have
started thinking about and reading for a research project focusing on the
parameters of an administrative and legal culture that both produces and
restricts the implementation of inclusive education in Germany. I am also
hoping to find the time soon to explore the early modern criminal trial records
in the archive in Mainz.
Have your interests evolved since
finishing your studies? For years, my research has centered on the legal settlement of homicide in
premodern Europe. In my book Making
Manslaughter: Process, Punishment and Restitution in Württemberg and Zürich,
1376-1700 (Brill 2017), I focus on the indeterminacy of legal practice and
analyze the impact of governmental policies and disputants' strategies on
judicial outcomes. While I was tracing among other things the ways in which
expert legal discourse was appropriated by disputants at court and adapted to
governmental aims, I was simultaneously struggling in my everyday life with
current legal decisions and the political interests that inform them,
concerning the education and work condition of children and adults with
disabilities. The desire to contextualize and understand the origins of medical
and legal arguments that propel and fuel the controversies surrounding these
decisions sparked my interest in disability history a few years ago.
What’s the most fascinating thing you’ve
ever found at the archives? During the course of my research, I was looking for sixteenth-century Swiss
records of extrajudicial settlements in homicide cases. In most of these cases,
only a copy of the final agreement survived. But once I got lucky and found
records that documented the various stages of the negotiation between the
disputing parties. There was even a letter containing the slayer's indignant
complaints about the dishonoring stipulations that the victim's father wanted
to impose on him.
Is there an article, book, film, website,
etc. that you would recommend to LHB readers? I highly recommend Dana Rabin's recent book Britain and its Internal Outsiders 1750-1800: Under Rule of Law (Manchester
University Press, 2017). Her thoughtful and inspiring analysis of court cases
in imperial Britain traces how an ideology of rule of law produced and
maintained categories of difference based on gender, religion and race.
What have you found to be the most
surprising thing about scholarly life? I never cease to be excited and surprised at how easy it is to connect with
historians from so many different places with the simple question: "What
are you working on?"
Tuesday, February 19, 2019
Scholar Spotlight: Mia Korpiola
Next in our Scholar Spotlight series is Mia Korpiola, University of Turku. Prof. Korpiola was one of three female contributors to the recently published Oxford Handbook of European Legal History.Mia Korpiola is a professor of legal history at the Faculty of Law at the University of Turku. She lives in Vantaa, adjacent to Helsinki, in Finland.
Website: https://www.utu.fi/en/people/mia-korpiola
Degrees: Candidate of Laws 1996, Licentiate of Laws (legal history) 1998, Doctor of Laws (legal history) 2004, title of Docent in Legal History (2007). Alma mater: University of Helsinki, Faculty of Law.
Fields of interest: reception processes, ecclesiastical law, family law, legal work, legal literacy
Describe your career path. What led you to where you are today? Finnish academic life has undergone profound changes during the last two decades. After I started my postgraduate studies, post grads and post docs have become increasingly dependent on external funding. Consequently, my so-called career resembles more a patchwork of funding and research projects than a path. Between 1997 and 2014, I had 12 different contracts, including post doc funding from the Academy of Finland, the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies and the Turku Institute for Advanced Studies. Practically all were acquired through competition. Young researchers have to “sell” their research ideas and themselves as realizing these to funding institutions. Only a small percentage is successful. I have been lucky not to have other career breaks than maternity/parental leaves and even more fortunate to be hired in 2014. This was my first permanent job. I am currently one of the three professors of legal history of Finland. To my knowledge, I am also the first female full professor of legal history in the Nordic Countries. As for personal qualities, I am really passionate about research. When my scientific curiosity is awakened, I will dig until I get answers. Legal history research allows me to combine many interests: history, law, languages, people, art and so on. Writing is also fun and I have no difficulties in producing text.
How would you describe the places where you live and work? My university is situated three hours by public transport from where I live. The distance – and the overall situation – is far from ideal. On the other hand, my Faculty understands that commitment and productivity are not dependent on living and working in the same town. I am normally required to be present one day a week. Naturally more often when I am in the middle of my teaching period. However, I miss being a daily part of a scientific community. I also miss having “a room of my own”, as Virginia Woolf once expressed it. I have an office in Turku, but not where I work the most, at home. However, this is the price to be paid for the luxury of my permanent job as my family keeps me in Vantaa.
What projects are you currently working on? I and my research group are currently busy with the book Modern Vehicles, Risks and Regulation in Finland, 1830-1950 to be finished in 2019. I am also doing research related to my other research project Legal Literacy in Finland ca. 1750-1920: A Case of Popular Legal Learning in Premodern Europe (https://blogit.utu.fi/oikeudellinentietotaito/in-english/). In addition, I am part of an international research group writing a book on the history of medieval and early modern Nordic inheritance law.
Have your interests evolved since finishing your studies?
Yes, they have very much. This has partly been organic, partly conscious, as I did not want to be classified into the niche “medieval and early modern family law” – a marginalizing label – I had already received a couple of times when applying for a job. I felt this label did not do my research and publications justice, and I decided to widen my research topics to the twentieth century and the history of legal professions. Otherwise, one thing has led to another quite organically.
What’s the most fascinating thing you’ve ever found at the archives? When I was reading Swedish ecclesiastical court records from the 1590s for my thesis (Between Betrothal and Bedding: Marriage Formation in Sweden, 1200–1600), I came across a cause initiated by a nobleman alleging that he had discovered on the wedding night that his young wife was no longer a virgin. This had created a huge family scandal causing a leading noble family to have its dirty linen washed in public – something that rarely happened. My curiosity awakened, I started to look for traces of the protagonists. To my great amazement, I unearthed bits and pieces in various Swedish archives: letters and drafts, receipts, financial accounts, entries in German university enrollment registers, etc. I could never have believed that so many sources related to the case still existed. It felt almost as if the persons themselves wanted that their story be told. The result was an article, “Kerstin Oxenstierna’s Lost Maidenhead: Honour, Sin and Matrimonial Law in Late Sixteenth-Century Sweden”.
Photo caption: Mia Korpiola giving a speech at the Centenary of the Supreme Court of Finland, 1st October 2018. From the Collection of the Supreme Court of Finland, photographer Marjo Koivumäki, Studio Apris.
Tuesday, February 12, 2019
Scholar Spotlight: Saskia Lettmaier
Earlier this fall we noted that only three of the fifty contributors to Oxford Handbook of European Legal History were women. Knowing that there are numerous women scholars whose voices would enrich a conversation on European Legal History, we have decided to spotlight some of them in a series of posts. As our colleagues at the “Women Also Know History” media platform note, there are “concrete way[s] to address explicit and implicit gender bias in public and professional perceptions of historical expertise.” We hope that this series of interviews will be one of them. (H/t: AHA Member Spotlight series.)
We begin the series with Saskia Lettmaier, Professor of Law at Kiel University in Germany.
We begin the series with Saskia Lettmaier, Professor of Law at Kiel University in Germany.
Alma Maters:
- Oxford University, B.A., 2002
- Harvard Law School, LL.M., 2003
- Bamberg University, PhD, 2007
- Erlangen University, First State Exam in Law, 2009
- Harvard Law School, S.J.D., 2015
- Regensburg University, Habilitation, 2016
Fields of
Interest: All private law subjects, with a particular emphasis on family and
succession law; legal history, with a particular emphasis on the early modern
and modern periods in England and Continental Europe; comparative and private
international law; law and culture
Career path: I
have had a fairly unusual career path. I never planned to be a law professor.
And I certainly did not plan every step on the way to becoming one. I was born
in Germany, and I completed my secondary school education there. However
(perhaps because I was an avid Jane Austen reader during my teenage years), I
have always had a strong penchant for the Anglo-American world. This is what first
brought me to England to study law at Oxford, and this is what subsequently brought
me to Harvard to study an Americanized version of the common law. While an
LL.M. student at Harvard, I had the good fortune to enroll in a course on wills
and trusts with Charlie Donahue. For my LL.M. paper, I drafted two wills for my grandmother on the
alternative hypotheses first that she was a resident of Germany and second that
she was a resident of Massachusetts. The main body of my work consisted
in comparing the results both from a planner’s and a client’s perspective. This
LL.M. drafting exercise fixed my interest in family and succession law as well
as my interest in comparative law. And it introduced me to Charlie Donahue, who
ended up being my doctoral supervisor and a tremendous mentor long after my
LL.M. studies were finished.
What do you like
most about where you live and work: Kiel is a city in the north of Germany, and
it reminds me a lot of England and also of Boston. People here have a Nordic
attitude and a Nordic sense of humor. Plus, Kiel is situated right on the
Baltic Sea. I am teaching at a university that recruits its students mainly
from the Bundesland (i.e. the German state
of Schleswig-Holstein, of which Kiel is the capital city). As a result, university
life here has a very earthy, heartfelt atmosphere. Add to that a bunch of very
supportive colleagues, always keen on collaborative endeavors, and it’s really
heaven on earth.
What projects are
you currently working on? My research focuses on the history as well as the
contemporary practice of family and succession law. I am equally committed to
both. When it comes to contemporary issues, I am trying to devise a more
equitable approach to balancing private autonomy and protection for the weaker
party in spousal and other in-family contracting. As a legal historian, I tend
to explore the history of family law, and in particular the history of marriage
law. I generally do so through a comparative perspective, with Germany and
England as my main comparators. Right now, I am writing a book chapter on
marriage law during the inter-war period in England and Germany.
Have your
interests evolved since finishing your studies? I dare say they have become more
tailored and more narrowly focused, but the big picture was there early on: my
techique is historical-comparative, and my favourite subject matter is the
history of family law and the history of wills and trusts.
What’s the most
fascinating thing you have ever found while doing your research? My most fascinating find dates from my
doctoral research on breach-of-promise actions in 19th-century England. I was
investigating a very famous mid-century breach-of-promise case brought by one
Mary Smith against a noble individual, and I was anxious to know what became of
Miss Smith after the trial (which she resoundingly lost) had ended—no easy task,
considering what a common name she had. I was greatly helped by her
grandfather’s will (discovered at a record office), which disclosed that she
had married one Kosciusko Hyde Kent Newbolt (not a common name by anyone’s standards).
From there it was an easy task to trace her to her death in Liverpool.
Is there an
article, book, film, or website that you would recommend to LHB readers? I strongly
recommend the British Newspaper Library, which offers an extensive collection
of British and overseas newspapers in print, on microfilm and as digital copies.
Much of the content has recently become available online via the British
Newspaper Archive. It’s a treasure trove for externalist legal historians like
myself, who like to study law in its social context.
What have you
found to be the most surprising thing about academic life? I never thought I
would have as much freedom to pick and choose my research topics, and I never
thought that I would enjoy it so much.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)