Thrilled that my book with Jordan Stanger-Ross, Challenging Exile: Japanese Canadians and the Wartime Constitution, has been named one of the 100 best books of 2025.
Order here: www.ubcpress.ca/challenging-...
The ASLH offers a rare and exciting thing--funding for interesting new ventures in legal history. Please consider applying (lots of time til deadline: Sept.1, 2026) 👇
Exciting, @sarannmcd.bsky.social!
A tree starting to flower in a large quad with a church in the corner.
Spring on South Campus, Maynooth.
Essential historical context right now: Coup 53 coup53.com Very blow-by-blow, but with an archival research thread that historians will appreciate. This documentary shows why you must go back to before 1978-79--namely to 1953--for the relevant background to today's war in the Middle East.
For a fantastic Turkish breakfast/lunch, coffee or dessert: Mehmet Efendi on Edgware Road (Marble Arch tube stop)
Great thread! For a fun break: see a film (interesting ones hard to see elsewhere) at any of the Curzon theatres. I went twice on my last visit and loved the tiny 40-seater cinema experience. Nice combo: Lebanese cafe-bakery on Marchmont St is 5-minute walk from Curzon Bloomsbury in Brunswick Center
For the "everything is online" crowd in the back:
Important to consider that "everything" cultural heritage related that is accessible online represents only 1% (one percent) of archives, libraries, and museum collections worldwide.
Come work with us @law.wisc.edu! Job posting just up, which could be an entry-level tenure-track assistant professorship in Anglo-American legal history ("foundations of western thought"): jobs.wisc.edu/jobs/law-sch... The deadline is soon: March 26, 2026. Please apply and/or spread the word!
I can confirm that the 'steady' hands of seventeenth-century surgeons were no better at handwriting than any other doctor... Any ideas what the surname of 'Johwhn' might have been? Do you think he actually knew? #palaeography #surgeonsproject
Congratulations!
Men studying a dragon
ENDOWED PROFESSORSHIP IN HISTORY OF SCIENCE
My home department at Uppsala University is advertising an endowed professorship in the history of science. This is the best position in the field in Sweden, and probably in all of Scandinavia. Apply before 30 April 2026. www.uu.se/en/about-uu/...
Hi friends. As I previously noted, the U. of Iowa is planning to get rid of African American studies; Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies, & the Classical Languages major—along with others. If you wish, please sign the classics petition: www.change.org/p/keep-the-c.... I will add more as I find out.
This time it was another botanical poison--ricin (better known than abrin). (5x)
Also in June 2025, there was this case (Middleton is a suburb of Madison): www.wkow.com/news/crime/w... (4x)
They blocked off the street last June with a swarm of people in hazmat suits and ambulances. There were many poisons allegedly used in this case. I recognized a botanical one called abrin from my colonial S.Asian sources (see p.345+): archive.org/details/in.e... (3x)
Up the street from my house, a neighbor is now on trial for this (he is a fellow Princeton alum but I've seen no coverage of this case in the Princeton Alumni Weekly!): www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news... (2/x)
We're about to do a class on poisoning in my History of Forensic Science course, and so it came up that #MadisonWI has had more than our fair share of serious criminal poisoning cases recently (1/x)
PUB DAY:
Nativists attacked the extension of birthright citizenship for the children of all immigrants from the moment the Fourteenth Amendment was introduced. These attacks continued over the twentieth century...
academic.oup.com/whq/advance-...
After many years in the works, Jim Jaffe & Marc Galanter's source book on panchayats is finally out! This will be very useful for teaching, plus it has a nice introduction on panchayats in South Asian legal history: orientblackswan.com/details?obsi... Buyers in the US can get it via Abe Books.
A little over a week ago I was up at Catholic U. to speak on a panel with John Langbein on the role of priests in the early history of the English common law. The panel was recorded if anyone is interested: cit.catholic.edu/events/the-p...
Larsen & McSweeney Medieval Treatises
Alli Orr Larsen (William & Mary Law School) & Thomas McSweeney (William & Mary Law School) have posted Medieval Treatises and the Judicial Search for a Useable Past on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The Supreme Court’s recent turn to history and tradition has…
@andreafowler13.bsky.social @moubanerjee28.bsky.social @darshanamini.bsky.social @anirbanbaishya.bsky.social
We South Asianists at UW-Madison are *so glad* it's full steam ahead for the 2026 ACSA with @uw-madsouthasia.bsky.social Asst Director Andrea Fowler @ the helm. The conf. chair will be @arunluthra.bsky.social. A million thanks to South Asianists around the world for your support earlier this year!
Giving a talk for Sydney HPS next Monday! Planetary Health beyond Spaceship Earth. Featuring the music and thought of Sun Ra
Banner showing the cover image of 'Essays on the History of Equity' and the text: Investigates the history of equity in England between the 14th and 20th centuries.
Now available: 'Essays on the History of Equity' edited by @david-foster.bsky.social and Charles Mitchell
Charts the evolution of equity in English legal history from the medieval period to the present day ➡️ https://bit.ly/46a4BYr
#LegalHistory #EquityLaw
Just discovered the newly launched ANTE website on global legal history--looking forward to learning lots here!
I propose to make universal the old policy of the Blackfriars conference at the American Shakespeare Center:
If you do not end your paper on time, you will be forced to exit, pursued by a bear. Literally, a bear will come take your paper from you.
New blog alert! I explore how post mortem medicine is understood, by those working within it and by the wider public. I reflect on the history of the modern autopsy, whether it's fair to call invasive autopsies barbaric, and how compassion can shape what respectful death investigation looks like.
