Dear ASLH Community,
This academic year we launch an exciting new initiative: the ASLH (Virtual) Book Club. The response to our initial call showed the incredible vibrancy of the field of legal history and we are excited to have the opportunity to have a conversation with authors about their books. Events will be held via Zoom on Wednesday evenings, from 6:00-7:00 Central, once a month. All events require an RSVP: we will send emails to the community two weeks in advance of the event with links allowing you to register, and those who are registered will receive an email with a Zoom link 24 hours before the event. Events will be open to the entire community this fall; starting in January, events will only be open to members. (So remember to renew your membership!)
Book Club events are structured as conversations. Authors will briefly introduce their book, then talk about it in conversation with an interlocutor (or another author in dual book sessions), before opening up the conversation to the audience. There is no expectation that audience members will have read the book. We will welcome interaction with the authors and their interlocutors via questions in the chat.
Schedule:
Sept. 20 Rowan Dorin, No Return: Jews, Christian Usurers and the Spread of Mass Expulsion in Medieval Europe (Princeton Univ. Press 2023) with Karl Shoemaker
October No Book Club. Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, Oct. 26-28
Nov. 15 Margot Canaday, Queer Career: Sexuality and Work in Modern America (Princeton Univ. Press 2023) with Karen Tani
Dec. 13 Christian R. Burset, An Empire of Laws: Legal Pluralism in British Colonial Policy (Yale Univ. Press 2023) and Lisa Ford, The King’s Peace: Law and Order in the British Empire (Harvard Univ. Press 2021)
Jan. 17 Lyndsay Campbell, Truth and Privilege: Libel Law in Massachusetts and Nova Scotia, 1820-1840 (Cambridge Univ. Press 2022) and Kristin A. Olbertson, The Dreadful Word: Speech Crime and Polite Gentlemen in Massachusetts, 1690-1776 (Cambridge Univ. Press 2022)
Feb. 21 Saumya Saxena, Divorce and Democracy: A History of Personal Law in Post-Independence India (Cambridge Univ. Press 2022) with Alastair McClure
Mar. 13 John Wertheimer, Race and Law in South Carolina: From Slavery to Jim Crow (Amherst College Press 2023) with Myisha S. Eatmon
Mark your calendars and we look forward to seeing you there! Questions? Email Barbara Welke at welke004@umn.edu. A call for the Book Club events for April-Sept. 2024 will be posted in December.
