For legal historians: did you publish a book recently that won't be represented at the Detroit ASLH conference book sale in Nov.2025? You should bring a copy for this new initiative to showcase your work! Much needed as only a few publishers are represented at the book sale: aslh.net/new-works-in...

@legalhistoryblog.bsky.social @kmtani.bsky.social @grisinger.bsky.social @mitrasharafi.bsky.social @awcohen.bsky.social @marydudziak.bsky.social @serenamayeri.bsky.social Last call! Extended deadline from ASLH Projects & Proposals for legal history. Due 9/19 - see ASLH website for details.

Just learned that UW-Madison has a historical cookbook collection (with a wobbly center of jello recipes): onwisconsin.uwalumni.com/now-were-coo...

Can anyone recommend good memoirs set in Ireland?

Calling all legal historians! The ASLH Projects and Proposals funding application deadline has been extended--from Sept.1 to Sept.18, 2025. If you're looking for funding for a legal history workshop or other initiative (the Call is very broad), you should apply: aslh.net/projects-pro...

Boats in a Storm gets an India edition with Westland Books @westlandbooks.bsky.social! Releasing on 18 August.

Very excited that the Asian Legal History Association will be formally launched at 2 events in March 2026--at Chinese University of Hong Kong (March 17-18, 2026) + Oxford (March 23)! Here's the Call for Papers for "Legal History in Asia and Beyond" (due Oct31): www.law.cuhk.edu.hk/app/events/c...

Fascinating article from the Princeton alumni magazine: paw.princeton.edu/article/max-...

And on the theme of positive stories in the news, here is one of my all-time favorites--a NYT story from over a decade ago on a long kidney donation chain within the US: www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/h...

Just discovered The Guardian's "Kindness of Strangers" series: www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle... What a ray of light in the middle of reading the news, which these days is so full of cruelty & destruction. These stories are moving, funny, kind, & hopeful. I just read them all in one go!

Wow--incredible interview with Arundhati Roy on her mother, rising authoritarianism in India and the US, and other things: www.nytimes.com/2025/08/30/m...

This was indeed one of my reactions. Especially for those of us teaching at non-elite universities, there has always been the reassurance that it didn't matter if we never taught Akkadian or Elamite b/c someone really interested could always go to Chicago or Harvard or Oxford to learn those. Now?

"Contrary to much popular opinion, college is not in the information transfer business; we are in the identity formation business." Insightful NYT piece on AI and pedagogy that looks to medieval history for useful ideas: www.nytimes.com/2025/08/26/o...

Cannot wait to read the rest of Arundhati Roy's memoir, which includes a grim Imperial Entomologist grandfather: www.theguardian.com/books/2025/a...

A highlight of my recent trip to Japan for the 5th Asian Legal History Conference was discovering the teamLab digital art museums in Tokyo: #teamlabborderless #teamlabplanets. Wondrous! And they are in other places,too (incl. Singapore Macau Abu Dhabi Hamburg). The future of museums: www.teamlab.art

I'm a historian of anticolonialism and anarchism in the 20C. My first book, 'Anarchy or Chaos', is a biography of India's foremost anarchist activist M.P.T. Acharya, and I am currently writing a book on the Indian revolutionary movement in Europe, 1905-1918. www.hurstpublishers.com/book/anarchy...

A good conference for photos!

Reporting back from another fantastic Asian Legal History Conference! This was the 5th--in Kyoto, Japan @doshishauniversity.bsky.social. Thanks & congrats to @chrismroberts.bsky.social, Anselmo Reyes, & everyone else who made it happen. Keynotes & vegan dinner @ shrine were especially memorable.

I did an interview with Kunal Ambasta on the history of forensic science and my forthcoming book (coming out with @cornellupress.bsky.social in 2026). Now up on the National Law School of India University's Scholars in Conversation series: www.nls.ac.in/blog/scholar...

Wow. Cambridge University Press has been sending me an agreement to let AI metabolize the 2014 book I published with them. I haven't signed because I'm uneasy and want to wait and see. But JHUP is a press that is flipping the default--authors apparently give permission unless they opt out.

It always makes my day to see a camel whenever I'm in north/western India. A happy camel story from Pakistan: www.bbc.com/news/videos/...

Taking up the sorry task of trying to AI-proof the syllabus for my research seminar. Please share tips, advice, examples.

It was a great conference!

This look like a great new edited volume

This was such a wonderful panel to be a part of in Toronto. De and Shani's new book is *amazing.* It comes out in September 2025, and will have a South Asian edition, too.

This looks fantastic, with a great line-up of scholars including legal historians Elizabeth Lhost and Kalyani Ramnath (who was there in the early days)! Also includes Anup Surendranath & Maitreyi Misra on death penalty (India) and Maryam Khan on socio-legal studies in Pakistan. Congratulations, all!

Sometimes an article takes me 10+ years to write! Here's the story of a piece I wrote on the rule of law in decolonizing India--and how it has relevance for the US today. Thank you ‪@kassandratuten.bsky.social‬ for writing this for The Gargoyle @law.wisc.edu: gargoyle.law.wisc.edu/2025/06/deca...

For junior scholars of #legalhistory who are working on first book manuscripts: you should apply for the ASLH Wallace Johnson First Book Program! Applications are due by June 27, 2025. Full details here: aslh.net/award/wallac...

"The hotel I booked seemed to not exist. A lady at the location said there used to be a hotel, but that it shut down a while ago." A research trip for the ages.

Wish I could be in Delhi to see this: www.bbc.com/news/article...

fancy a bit of legal history, law and literature, and practice-as-research? come to my @leverhulme.ac.uk-funded workshop at @sheffieldcems.bsky.social on the 23rd May. featuring libels, process-serving, facsimile documents, lewd remarks and document eating! tinyurl.com/4ras5xtv please share widely!

Are you the author of a book, article, or digital work on #LegalHistory published between Jan.2024 and Dec.2025? If so, you should propose it for the ASLH's "Making Connections: New Works in Legal History Series" (virtual) in AY 2025-26. Application deadline: June 30, 2025 aslh.net/making-conne...

Very exciting funding opportunity for early career scholars working on non-US legal history! The ASLH has a brand new fellowship (US $2,000 each) to fund research on non-US #LegalHistory topics. Full details here: aslh.net/new-fellowsh... Deadline for applications: June 30,2025

New ASLH initiative for anyone who wants to propose a virtual #LegalHistory workshop for AY2025-26! This is an especially useful format now--with travel risks & restrictions for so many scholars from around the world (hard to meet in person but at least there's zoom). Applications due: June 30, 2025

Want to be part of the ASLH Early Career Virtual Legal History Workshop in AY2025-26? Hosted by Dirk Hartog & Michelle McKinley. Here's the Call. Application deadline: June 30, 2025 #LegalHistory

Great opportunity for grad students working on #LegalHistory topics! Applications for the ASLH Student Research Colloquium (Detroit, Nov.12-13, 2025) are due on June 1

Congratulations to the 2025 Hurst Fellows! I am excited to meet and get to know all of you here in Madison next month: www.law.wisc.edu/hurst-instit... @law.wisc.edu

Strawberry Thief appreciation post

I'm finishing up a book manuscript for @cornellupress.bsky.social that includes a section on forensic venomology in colonial India. I worked really hard to get over my snake phobia for that! So this caught my eye. Big news to be on verge of a universal antivenom: www.bbc.com/news/article... (1/2)

Am co-organising a symposium on the Irish Political Constitution with @alangreene.bsky.social and @laurcah.bsky.social Call for papers is currently live. If you have any interesting ideas on the topic, or know anyone who does, please do submit an abstract.

Great 3 year postdoc opportunity at Melbourne Law School closing very soon. Applicants must contact a member of the faculty to endorse their draft application law.unimelb.edu.au/research/for...

I must admit I'm not up to speed with the details of the lawsuit, but if it's true that the fine would be an existential matter for the Internet Archive (which sounds likely), it definitely shouldn't go ahead. An invaluable and probably irreplaceable resource chng.it/Y7pc5sG796 @archive.org

Can anyone recommend work by historians on the theme of secrets, especially: secrets the historian encounters intentionally or not, and what they decide to do with them in their scholarship? Any time or place

Meeting with my student to discuss arsenic poisoning in the 19th-c. US reminded me of the Poison Book Project: sites.udel.edu/poisonbookpr... For instance, an 1857 Boston edition of *A Golden Legacy to Daughters, or Advice to Young Ladies* used arsenic-infused bookcloth.

I'm finishing up a book manuscript for @cornellupress.bsky.social on one kind of dissimulation-- planting false evidence in colonial India. So I enjoyed this story on another kind of falsity & fakery in history: www.nytimes.com/2025/04/14/s...

Recovering from a fantastic trip to Bangalore over spring break for "Contours of Legal History" workshop @ National Law School. Here are some highlights, including a campus pup who came in to inspect, a much appreciated motto (NLSIU--"where the mind is without fear") & gorgeous plants at airport

So well deserved!

For anyone with a 2024 dissertation on European+global legal history angles: the deadline for Max Planck-ASLH dissertation prize is June 1, 2025. The winner gets a 3-month residential fellowship at the Max Planck Institute in Frankfurt: aslh.net/award/maxpla... Please spread the word!

The Legal History Blog is THE place to go for legal history news, including the upcoming annual meeting of the American Society for Legal History. legalhistoryblog.blogspot.com/2024/08/aslh...

Had a great time at the ASLH conference this weekend. Met many great people and had some great feedback on my paper. Especially happy to go to the session dedicated to Dr. Wood's memory