Workshop on Modern East Asian Law in Global Perspective
Columbia University, New York
April 15, 2017
Call for Papers
The Weatherhead East Asia Institute at Columbia University and the American Society for Legal History invite early-career scholars to submit proposals for an international workshop on modern East Asian legal history, to be held on April 15, 2017.
Recent scholarship has reinvigorated the study of legal history, expanding the set of concerns beyond their traditional conceptual, geographic and methodological boundaries. For students of East Asia, the prospects this presents are exciting. What to do with the modifier “modern” in modern law has always been a thorny issue in our field. But as we have come to see familiar Western legal concepts as vitally conditioned by globalization, as opposed to distillates of a universally valid modernity, there are new opportunities to appraise the nature and significance of the transformation of East Asian legal systems in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This workshop will provide a venue for current graduate students, postdoctoral scholars and new faculty to come together to discuss the theoretical and historiographic issues at stake.
The overarching goal is to consider how East Asia fits into an emerging global history of modern law. Where is there common ground? Where are the possibilities to speak to scholars who specialize in other regions the greatest? And where does a global perspective need to give way to more circumscribed regional and national legal histories? These questions will be brought to bear as participants engage with each other’s papers and research, guided by established historians and legal scholars including Madeleine Zelin, Andrew Sartori, Arnulf Becker Lorca, and Taisu Zhang.
The day will consist of two panels of presentations, followed by a breakout session at the end. Papers will be pre-circulated, and participants are expected to come to the workshop having read all papers and ready with questions and comments. Presenters will give a 15-minute introduction and synthesis of their work. Each panel will be followed by faculty comments and discussion.
Interested scholars should send a one-page proposal and a CV to globalealaw@gmail.com by February 10, 2017. Acceptance notices will be issued by February 20. Selected presenters are asked to send completed papers to the conference committee by March 19 for pre-circulation.
Limited funding is available for conference participants. Please indicate your need at the time of application and include where you are traveling from and whether you require lodging.
For all other inquiries, please contact globalealaw@gmail.com.
Conference Organizers: Colin Jones, Idriss Fofana and Tristan Brown
