CFP: Blackstone at Eighteenth-Century Studies

We have the following call for papers for a panel on "William Blackstone: Intersections between Law and Culture,” to be proposed for the 44th American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Annual Meeting, Cleveland, OH, April 4-7, 2013.  It comes from Andrew Benjamin Bricker, a Ph.D. candidate in Stanford’s Department of English.

One would be hard-pressed to overstate the importance and popularity among both legal and lay readers of William Blackstone`s Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-69), both in the eighteenth century and beyond, and throughout Britain, its empire and America. Nonetheless, Blackstone`s other ventures, as a historian, as a literary writer, even as a legal writer, have been largely neglected. Building on the recent renaissance in Blackstone studies-most notably, Wilfrid Prest`s biography, William Blackstone: Law and Letters in the Eighteenth Century (2008), his edited collection, Blackstone and his Commentaries: Biography, Law, History (2009), and his edition of Blackstone`s correspondence, The Letters of Sir William Blackstone, 1744-1780 (2006)-this panel seeks presentations that address any aspect of Blackstone`s career, writings or life. Of particular interest are papers that address broader cultural and social issues-both in their influence on Blackstone, and his influence on their growth and later interpretation-demonstrating the connections between Blackstone, as both a jurist and a thinker, and the larger world of eighteenth-century culture and society.

Abstracts of 250-400 words should be sent to Andrew Bricker (abricker [at] stanford [dot] edu) by 15 September 2012.