"Legibility & Legalism in the Early Modern" - Seeking Co-Panelists and Chair-Commentator for ASLH 2017

Sara Ludin Discussion

 

We are two PhD candidates looking for one or two other panelists, plus a chair-commentator for our submission to the 2017 ASLH conference to be held October 26-29 in Las Vegas. Our proposed panel is titled “Legibility and Legalism in the Early Modern.” We are open to all geographies, but would like to stay within the period spanning roughly 1400-1650.

One of us (Ron Makleff, History UC Berkeley) works on archives, ceremonies of sovereignty, and state-formation in 15th-17th century France; the other of us (Sara Ludin, JSP UC Berkeley) works on religion/secularity, litigation, and legal category production and proliferation in 16th century Germany.

We invite papers that focus on the ways in which often mundane legal practices forged important and consequential legal concepts. More generally we would like to build a panel of papers that center the role of language and text in their study of the legal past.

If you are interested in joining our panel proposal, please send us your abstract by March 29th (rmakleff@berkeley.edu, saraludin@berkeley.edu).