Australian and New Zealand Law and History Society

Congratulations to Danielle Boaz, University of North Carolina Charlotte campus, who has been awarded the 2016 Sir Francis Forbes Prize for Australian legal history for a paper delivered at our Perth conference last December. For more information on the prize and this year’s winner see the Prizes and Scholarships page.

A new edition of law&history is in press. The contents page is available under the ‘Journal’ tab.

There is an opportunity to showcase the wonderful interdisciplinary work many of our members do at the Australian Historical Association conference which is to be held in Newcastle 3-7 July 2017.  The conference theme is Entangled Histories and we are keen to have some legal history-specific panels.  As the conference call for papers’ deadline is looming please send an abstract of your  proposed paper to libby.connors@usq.edu.au or to Diane.Kirkby@latrobe.edu.au by 30 March 2017.

This new work may be of interest to members.

Granville Sharp’s Cases on Slavery

Andrew Lyall

The purpose of Granville Sharpe’s Cases on Slavery is twofold: first, to publish previously unpublished legal materials principally in three important cases in the 18th century on the issue of slavery in England, and specifically the status of black people who were slaves in the American colonies or the West Indies and who were taken to England by their masters. The unpublished materials are mostly verbatim transcripts made by shorthand writers commissioned by Granville Sharp, one of the first Englishmen to take up the cause of the abolition of the slave trade and slavery itself. Other related unpublished material is also made available for the first time, including an opinion of an attorney general and some minor cases from the library of York Minster.

Dr Andrew Lyall is a retired member of staff in Law at University College Dublin.

Hart Publishing are currently offering a discount to members here

We note a CFP for the XXIIIrd Annual Forum of the Association of Young Legal Historians, to be held in Naples, 30 May-1 June 2017.  The theme is “History of Law and Other Humanities: Views of the Legal Culture across the Time”. The Forum will be devoted to the Relations between Law and Humanities, ‘in order to propose new instruments of research’. More information is here, and the CFP closes 15 March.  Its somewhat short notice, but it is in Naples! Hat Tip: Legal History Blog.

For those so minded, a reminder…

Nominations for the History Council of NSW awards and prizes close Friday 31 March 2017. Full details.

Nominations for the 2017 Maritime History Prizes offered by the Australian Association for Maritime History and the Australian National Maritime Museum close on Friday 28 April 2017. Full details.

This may be of interest to some of our post-grad members:

Applicants with a background in historical research are sought to work on a legal-historical project based at Melbourne Law School. Professor Ian Ramsay and Associate Professor Paul Ali are currently recruiting a Research Assistant to work with them on a study of bankruptcy laws in nineteenth century Australia. This study forms part of a three year ARC-funded investigation of Australia’s personal insolvency regime. More information is available.

We note the following opportunity for early career scholars. The Centre for Law and History at Stanford is calling for applications for a 2 year Fellowship. Further details are available via Stanford.

Applications are invited for a PhD studentship attached to the Australian Research Council Discovery Project, ‘Breaking down tradition: women in male-dominated work, 1840-2000’ (DP 160102764). Through examining the origins and circulation of ideas about women’s and men’s paid work in both Britain and Australia, the research will enhance current understandings of the enduring nature of workplace inequality. The successful candidate will work with the Chief Investigators on the project, Professor Diane Kirkby and Dr Emma Robertson, and be attached to the Archaeology and History Program of La Trobe University.

Applicants are encouraged to explore the contested and changing nature of workplace ‘tradition’ in any period of the 19^th and 20^th centuries with a focus on aspects of law in Britain or Australia. How did certain jobs become ‘traditional’ for men and ‘non-traditional’ for women? Proposals are particularly welcomed in the field of Indigenous women’s labour history. The studentship is funded by La Trobe at the initial rate of $26,288 p.a.

History at LTU has a reputation for research excellence sustained since its inception in 1969, with particular strengths in gender and labour history. Our vibrant research community has recently undergone a period of renewal and exciting growth. We currently host three ARC DPs, four Future Fellowships and three Linkage Grants. The successful applicant may choose to be based at either the Bundoora (Melbourne) or Bendigo campus of La Trobe.

For more information and instructions on how to apply, please contact Prof Diane Kirkby in the first instance: diane.kirkby@latrobe.edu.au; tel. 03 9479 2379. The deadline for applications is 31^st January 2017.

We have the following call for papers. Note the key dates: Conference July 16-18 University of Calgary. CFP close February 1.

‘From July 16 to 18, 2017, the Faculties of Law and Arts at the University of Calgary will jointly host  “Canada’s Legal Past: Future Directions in Canadian Legal History,” and we are seeking expressions of interest and abstracts. Canadian legal history has come into its own in the last thirty-five years, as scholars have moved to examine law within the context of cultural, philosophical and larger historical frames. This conference will provide an opportunity to take stock of the last generation of work on Canada’s legal history and to assess what comes next, in terms of topics, methodologies, sources, and theories. The majority of the papers will be original papers on recent work, but we are also hoping to attract historiographical scholarship that will identify future topics and approaches. The anniversary of the country will inspire reflections on the longer story of northern North America. We are hoping participants will locate the historical project that was and is Canada within the larger context of empires – indigenous and European – and the world and to consider questions of law’s relationship to the tension between local and faraway influences; to gender, race and indigeneity; to state-building, trade and commerce; and to the circulation of ideas, legal, cultural, religious, economic and otherwise. This conference will also provide an opportunity for discussions of the teaching of legal history in different disciplinary contexts within the academy, as it is is hoped that scholars from a range of disciplinary homes and backgrounds – working in French and English – will take part.

Abstracts should be submitted by February 1 to Lyndsay Campbell (lcampbe@ucalgary.ca), but early expressions of interest would be most welcome. Please do pass this call for papers along.

Conference organizers:

• Blake Brown, History and Atlantic Canada Studies, St. Mary’s University (blake.brown@smu.ca)
• Lyndsay Campbell, Law and History, University of Calgary (lcampbe@ucalgary.ca)
• Ted McCoy, Law & Society and Sociology, University of Calgary (ejmccoy@ucalgary.ca)
• Nicole O’Byrne, Law, University of New Brunswick (nobyrne@unb.ca)
• Adrian Smith, Law and Legal Studies, Institute of Political Economy, and Institute of African Studies, Carleton University (adrian.smith@carleton.ca)’