- Jonathan Gienapp continues his engagement with "original public meaning" originalists. "[O]riginalists assume that historians’ primary contribution is that they know that something happened or that a word had a certain meaning in the past," he writes. "Historians, meanwhile, tend to believe that their principal skill is in knowing how to decode historical utterances in all their guises. The knowing that is thus built on the knowing how, or, better put, the knowhow" (Process).
On March 20-21, the Kislak Center at the University of Pennsylvania will host a hybrid event on "The Scopes Trial at 100: Secularism, Race, and Education." More information is available here.
Raulston,J., charges the Scopes Trial jury (NYPL).
- Edward Larson will deliver the Palmer Hotz Endowed Lecture in the History of Science on the Scopes Trial at the University of Arkansas at 5:15 p.m. Thursday, March 6, in the Gearhart Auditorium.
- The Supreme Court Historical Society lecture, "The Life and Times of Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth," by William R. Casto will be held at 12:00 PM (EST) on February 24, 2025, via Zoom. The Society will subsequently post a recording on its YouTube channel. Register here.
- At the next meeting of the Helsinki Legal History Series seminar, on February 25 and conducted over Zoom, Susanne K. Paas of the Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory, will speak on “Josef Esser: A German Jurist in Four Systems.” More.
- At the next online meeting of the Environment, Law, and History Global Workshop, Benjamin Richardson, University of Tasmania Faculty of Law, will present the previously circulated paper, “Conservation Covenants in Castlecrag, Sydney: Walter Burley and Marion Griffin’s Legal Innovation in the Interbellum.” Carol Rose will comment. The session will take place on March 27 at 9 pm UTC. (Convert to your time zone, if necessary, here.)(H-Law).
- "Christian, Jewish, Islamic & Secular Law in American &
International History," a Zoom panel, will take place on Thursday,
February 27 at 3:30 EST. Panelists include Deina Abdelkader, David Novak, Peter N. Stearns, and R. Charles Weller. Register here (H-Law).
- Five top public law scholars have responded to the Barnett/Wurman NYT op-ed on birthright citizenship (Just Security). And Jonathan Schaub, after reviewing the exchange, adds an argument based on expatriation (Lawfare).
- Mark Tushnet, Stephen Skowronek, and John A. Dearborn discuss “the destruction of the public service” on the Scholars’ Circle podcast.
- ICYMI, State Constitutional History Edition: The New Hampshire Department of Education has launched a series of digital resources on the New Hampshire Constitution (Discovery). Also, "Iowa's unique civil rights history must be taught, not suppressed" (Des Moines Register). The inalienable rights clause of the North Dakota Constitution figures in a reproductive rights brief files by the Constitutional Accountability Center (CRR). Teaching Americanism in New York classrooms, 1919-1922 (New York Almanack).
- Karin Wulf on "Abigail Kimball's law book...1785" in Princeton's Lapidus Collection (BlueSky).
- ICYMI: The Charter of the Forest of 1225, the Magna Carta of 1215, and the Forest Charter of 1217 are on display at Lincoln Castle until June 1, 2025 (Lincolnshire Today). A new library at Adams State University will preserve "the water, land and cultural history of the Upper Rio Grande River Basin" (KRCC). Vittorio Bufacchi's short history of separation of powers (The Conversation). The six sentences George Washington cut from his farewell address (Slate).
Weekend Roundup is a weekly feature compiled by all the Legal History bloggers
