Triangle Legal History Seminar

We have finalized the spring schedule of presentations, which are as follows (paper titles are tentative). All meetings will take place from 4-6pm at the National Humanities Center. February 10: Anna Johns, "Consumer Protection and Tort Reform: A Case Study of Alabama" Anna Johns, J.D., is a Ph.D. Candidate in History at Duke University.  She will be workshopping a chapter from her dissertation, "Through Tort Hell and Back: The Rise and Fall of the Consumer Class Action in Alabama." February 24: Rebecca Scott, Professor of History and Law, University of Michigan - "Luisa Coleta and the Capuchin Friar: The Final Sacraments behind a Suit for Freedom" Rebecca Scott is Professor of History and Law, University of Michigan, and visiting professor at Duke Law School for Spring 2017.  She will be presenting new research on early nineteenth-century Cuba. April 21: Mandy Cooper, Ph.D. Candidate, Duke University - "The Family State: Famil...

Please join us for the next meeting of the Triangle Legal History Seminar, next Friday, Nov. 4, at the National Humanities Center from 4-6 pm. Emiliano Corral (J.D. Ph.D., Duke Sanford School of Public Policy) will present his paper, "The Ending of the Convict Lease Program by the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company (TCI) in the Birmingham (AL) District: An Institutional Analysis".  Please find a copy of the paper here . Email ashton.merck@duke.edu if you have any questions.

This is a reminder that  Paul Babie, Professor and Associate Dean, Adelaide Law School, Australia and  John Orth of UNC's law school will be presenting a lunchtime program on the Torrens system on November 7 at UNC Law's faculty lounge .  The program, entitled " Property Stories: How Torrens Title Failed to Solve All the Problems, and Actually Created Some,"  is as follows:   The Prisoners of Adams Creek: Family, Race, Adverse Possession, and Torrens Title in North Carolina – John Orth Beginning in 2002, litigation in Carteret County that began as a family quarrel has sent North Carolina lawyers scrambling to understand Torrens Title, has raised uncomfortable questions about the collision between race and the Progressive attempt to simplify land titles, and has led to the years-long imprisonment of two African-American men for contempt.   Adams Creek Assocs. v. Davis, 746 S.E.2d 1 (N.C. Ct. App.), disc. rev. denied, 748 S.E.2d 322 (N.C. 2013); Buck...

We are very much looking forward to John Wertheimer and his students presenting on October 21.   They will be presenting on  " State  v.  Posey : Criminal  Bargains  between  the  Enslaved  and  their Enslavers."   This will be in Chapel Hill at UNC's law school in 5001 (aka "The Boardroom").  Please note that this is NOT our usual location. This is our fall break, so campus will be pretty quiet that afternoon.  And we're expecting a beautiful fall afternoon to talk legal history.  We'll be circulating the paper soon. If you'd like parking, please let me know.   Here is a link to directions and two maps that show the Route 54 parking lot and the UNC Law School. The illustration is Eumenean Hall on the Davidson College campus. The paper can be accessed by seminar participants through this link . (Please contact Ashton Merck awb27@duke.edu for the password to the file if you are not already on the seminar li...

The next official meeting of the Triangle Legal History Seminar will take place next Friday, October 7th, in a rare opportunity to join forces with the Triangle Global British History Seminar and the Triangle Early American History Seminar.   Lisa Ford, from the University of New South Wales, will present her paper, entitled "The King’s Peace and the Imperial Constitution: Boston, 1764-1770." Please write to Ashton Merck (awb27@duke.edu) for access to the paper.

It is my pleasure to announce that Paul Babie , professor of law and associate dean at Adelaide University, Australia, and my UNC colleague John Orth will both by speaking at lunchtime on November 7 at UNC Law, on the Torrens title system.  The title of their program is “Property Stories: How Torrens Title Failed to Solve All the Problems, and Actually Created Some.” Babie's talk is entitled "The Carey Gulley Squatter: Crown and Possessory Title of Torrens Land in South Australia." You may have heard that Babie gave one of the best of the talks at the North Carolina Law Review 's terrific symposium on Magna Carta last fall.  And that's really saying something because those talks were fabulous. Babie asked the intriguing question, why did do we remember Magna Carta but not other charters from that era. He focused on the forest charter, for instance, of 1217.  And then he also unfolded how that charter has other implications for progressive property.  I can...

Please join us for a discussion of David Gilmartin's paper "Voting and Party Symbols in India" on Friday, September 9, from 4-6 pm at the National Humanities Center.  Light refreshments will be served. Voting and Party Symbols in India:  The Visual and the Law in Constituting the Sovereign People Abstract: The establishment and legal regulation of voting practices provides a critical window for analyzing the distinctive meanings attached to the people’s sovereignty as an operative force in electoral democracies.   In India, this is evident in the controversies that have surrounded the use of officially-sanctioned party electoral symbols in election campaigns.   Originally adopted after India’s independence to facilitate voting by a largely illiterate population, symbols have since come to play critical roles as party logos.  But their practical use and “misuse” has sparked considerable controversy, raising questions both about t...