Law, Culture, and the Humanities

LCH Graduate Student Workshop 2022
2022-06-15 00:00 - 23:59 UTC | Emory University School of Law, Atlanta, Georgia, United States
Zoom Session – The Place of Race in Law & Literature

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Interested in attending the workshop?

Apply by Thursday, April 14th, 2022 with the subject line:

ASLCH Grad Workshop Application.

Please name your file(s) using your lastname first, e.g. “Miller_application” or “Miller_cv”. Please remind us if you applied for or participated in a previous workshop and, if so, which one(s).

Submit Application

The Annual Association for the Study of Law, Culture, and the Humanities Graduate Student Workshop will be held on Wednesday, June 15, 2022 (the day before the annual meeting begins).

The workshop is designed for graduate students who are undertaking research that cuts across law, cultural studies, literature, philosophy, legal studies, anthropology, political science, and history, among others. The workshop is designed to afford graduate students the opportunity to experience the LCH community in a smaller venue with more sustained contact with one another and some faculty. The workshop also provides graduate students with an opportunity to discuss their research projects in a small group setting in anticipation of such things as job talks and publication.

Applications to the workshop should consist of a current curriculum vitae (2-3 page maximum), an abstract of a current project not exceeding 700 words, as well as a short (5- page maximum) text relating to that project. This “text” could be a case, literary work, a time-line, a photo, a sound or video file, or some other relevant text. The text you choose should be something that helps you reflect on the subject of your work and your methods of analysis. Please use your judgment and best guess in deciding how audio, visual, or audio-visual materials “translate” into pages of text.

Applicants whose proposals are accepted will receive some support towards an extra night’s accommodation from ASLCH as well as some support (varying, depending on distance traveled) towards the cost of transportation to the conference site. While those who participated in a previous workshop may re-apply and participate again, should space and/or funds be limited, we will prioritize new participants.Please email your applications to lch@lawculturehumanities.com before Thursday April 14, 2022 with the subject line: ASLCH Grad Workshop Application. Please name your file(s) using your lastname first, e.g. “Miller_application” or “Miller_cv”. Please remind us if you applied for or participated in a previous workshop and, if so, which one(s).

2022 Twenty-Fourth Annual Conference
2022-06-16 00:00 - 2022-06-17 23:59 UTC | Emory University School of Law, Atlanta, Georgia, United States
Zoom Session – The Place of Race in Law & Literature

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Conference Program

View Program

The 2022 LCH conference considers topics broadly related to law and legal studies. In addition, our theme this year is:

Unsettling Law

Law often resides in the pull between what is settled and what is not. Precedent guides us until it does not. Law’s stability is in constant conversation with its own necessary responsiveness as well as with what troubles it from outside of legal institutions. Disobediences, whether civil or not, have the power to unsettle what is taken to be settled. And forces like climate change pose challenges to settled law by destabilizing what may make obedience and order possible at all. Law continually expands the range of persons it recognizes, for better or worse, while it claims across all changes that it serves the interests of all. Borders exclude but remain permeable, and we argue about what is owed to others regardless of their citizenship status. States claim sovereignty and face refusals from other sovereignties within their borders. Even settler colonialism is a process rather than an outcome, so what is settled and what remains open to different futures may be contested. How do and should we imagine law in these unsettled times? What creative forces might we bring to bear in these moments between past and future, whether for unsettling what ought to change or stabilizing what is endangered? How might different disciplines, methodologies, arts, literatures, and technologies represent, reinforce, or resist unsettling law? We invite proposals taking up that question from a variety of humanities-oriented perspectives.

Attendance Options

The conference will emphasize the LCH tradition of in-person conversation while making some panels available for those who wish to participate virtually. Rather than hosting hybrid panels, there will be one full session dedicated to online panels each day of the conference. Virtual attendees can view these, and there will be public viewing rooms at the conference so that attendees can engage in conversation with each other and the virtual panelists. We will also host three plenary sessions that will be available in person as well as streaming online. Some of the in-person panels will be streamed during the sessions that aren’t online-dedicated. Information to plan your trip to Atlanta is available here.

Conference Registration

Membership in LCH is required to register for the conference and must be purchased before registration.

A 50% refund will be issued in the event that a participant has to cancel their registration.

All conference attendees are required to read and respect LCH’s COVID policy.

Registration process

Make sure to become a member before you register!

Become a Member

Register for Conference

Conference Fees

The fees for in-person participation in the Conference are:

Graduate students and post-doctoral scholars$35Income less than $75,000$125Income between $75,000-$99,999$155Income between $100,000-$124,999$210Income $125,000 and over$260

The fees to participate remotely are:

Graduate students and post-doctoral scholarsFreeIncome less than $75,000$50Income between $75,000-$99,999$75Income between $100,000-$124,999$100Income $125,000 and over$150

Graduate Workshop

The LCH Graduate Workshop will be held at Emory on Wednesday, June 15. We will circulate information about it soon. Any questions may be directed to lch@lawculturehumanities.com.

The workshop is designed for graduate students who are undertaking research that cuts across law, cultural studies, literature, philosophy, legal studies, anthropology, political science, and history, among others. The workshop is designed to afford graduate students the opportunity to experience the LCH community in a smaller venue with more sustained contact with one another and some faculty. The workshop also provides graduate students with an opportunity to discuss their research projects in a small group setting in anticipation of such things as job talks and publication.

Workshop Details

COVID Policy

As part of the registration process, you will be asked to confirm you have read our COVID policy and will honor it to the best of your ability.

LCH will require that those in attendance at the conference wear KN95 or comparable masks whenever they are in the conference venue. We will have a limited supply of masks available.

We ask that people attending the conference be vaccinated and boosted, and that attendees self-administer COVID rapid tests before attending the conference each day. We will not be requiring or verifying that people are vaccinated or tested.

Please do not attend the conference if you are symptomatic or test positive. If you should find that you have COVID soon after attending the conference, please let us know so we can inform the community of people who also attended.

ATlanta information

As of April 2022, 98.8% of students and 97.5% of faculty and staff at Emory are fully vaccinated, and 95% of students and 91.5% of faculty and staff are boosted. Emory maintains a COVID dashboard that offers information on COVID cases and prevalence at Emory and the surrounding counties.

Planning your Stay in Atlanta

Accommodation

The Hyatt is offering LCH attendees a promotional rate of $164/night (before taxes) for the evenings of June 15th, 16th, and/or 17th. The hotel has set aside a limited number of rooms at this rate. We therefore encourage you to book early to secure the rate. Book this hotel here.

Midtown, Atlanta, is a 15-20 minute drive from the law school. We encourage attendees to stay in Midtown so as to maximize opportunities for socializing outside of the conference. There will be shuttle service available from the Hyatt Centric Midtown (schedule available in program).

For those wishing to stay close to Emory Law School, there are two options:

The University Inn is a 3-star motel with reasonable rates directly across the street from the Law School. There are a few restaurants in nearby Emory Village (a 7 minute walk), but this is otherwise a quiet area with little nightlife.

The more expensive Emory Conference Center and Hotel is located one mile down Clifton Road from the Law School. It’s about a twenty minute walk to the Law School. There are a few restaurants in nearby Emory Point, but this complex, across the street from the CDC, is located in an otherwise a quiet area with little nightlife.

An additional option for lodging are the numerous hotels in Decatur Square in downtown Decatur, Georgia, which is a ten minute drive from Emory Law School. There are lots of hotels and restaurants surrounding the square, which is anchored by a MARTA subway stop.

Transportation

Getting from the Airport to…

Midtown Atlanta

A rideshare typically costs $25-30 before tip.

Far easier and nearly as fast is to take MARTA. Trains leave the airport every 7-10 minutes throughout the day. One way fare is $2.50. Take a Gold or Red line train North to Midtown Station (approximately 22 minutes). The Hyatt Centric is a four minute walk from the subway station.

Emory University Area Hotels

A ride-share typically costs $30-40 before tip and is much easier and faster than taking MARTA.

It is possible to take MARTA, however: from the Airport station, take the Red or Gold line train North to Lindbergh Station (runs every 7-10 minutes) and transfer to a #6 Bus (runs every 40 minutes), which runs down Clifton Road, with stops in front of the conference center and the law school (total travel time is about an hour). One way fare is $2.50.

Decatur Square

A ride-share typically costs $30-40 before tip.

Easier but a bit slower is to take MARTA. Take a Gold or Red line train North to Five Points Station. Transfer to a Blue line train East to Decatur Station. One way fare is $2.50.

Getting to the Conference from…

Midtown Atlanta (4.6 Miles away, 15-20 minute drive)

On June 16th and 17th, free shuttle service will be offered by LCH between the Hyatt and Emory Law School in the morning, at lunchtime, and at the end of the day.

A ride-share costs about $15 before tip.

MARTA’s #36 Bus runs from Midtown Station to the Law School every 40 minutes.

Georgia Tech and Emory operate a free shuttle every 90 minutes throughout the day that picks up at Midtown Station on its way to Emory (and drops off at Midtown Station on return trips to Tech). Drop off at Emory is at Clifton Rd. & Gatewood Rd., an 11 minute walk from the law school. Pick up at Emory is Woodruff Circle, a 7-minute walk from the law school.

Emory Area Hotels

The conference center is a twenty-minute walk to/from the law school. The University Inn is a one-minute walk to the law school.

Emory’s free CCTMA shuttle provides regular free service connecting the Conference Center and the Law School.

Decatur Square (2.5 miles away, 10-minute drive)

A rideshare typically costs about $10-12 before tip.

MARTA’s #36 Bus runs from Decatur Station to the Law School every 40 minutes.

Emory’s free CCTMA shuttle provides regular free service connecting Decatur Square and the Law School.

LCH Graduate Student Workshop 2023
2023-06-21 00:00 - 23:59 UTC | University of Toronto School of Law, 78 Queens Park, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 2C5, Canada
Zoom Session – The Place of Race in Law & Literature

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Interested in attending the workshop?

The application deadline has been extended to Monday, March 27, 2023.

Please use the subject line: LCH Grad Workshop Application.

Please name your file(s) using your lastname first, e.g. “Miller_application” or “Miller_cv”. Please remind us if you applied for or participated in a previous workshop and, if so, which one(s).

Submit Application

The Annual Association for the Study of Law, Culture, and the Humanities Graduate Student Workshop will be held on Wednesday, June 21, 2023 (the day before the annual meeting begins).

The workshop is designed for graduate students who are undertaking research that cuts across law, cultural studies, literature, philosophy, legal studies, anthropology, political science, and history, among others. The workshop is designed to afford graduate students the opportunity to experience the LCH community in a smaller venue with more sustained contact with one another and some faculty. The workshop also provides graduate students with an opportunity to discuss their research projects in a small group setting in anticipation of such things as job talks and publication.

Applications to the workshop should consist of a current curriculum vitae (2-3 page maximum), an abstract of a current project not exceeding 700 words, as well as a short (5- page maximum) text relating to that project. This “text” could be a case, literary work, a time-line, a photo, a sound or video file, or some other relevant text. The text you choose should be something that helps you reflect on the subject of your work and your methods of analysis. Please use your judgment and best guess in deciding how audio, visual, or audio-visual materials “translate” into pages of text.

Applicants whose proposals are accepted will receive some support towards an extra night’s accommodation from LCH as well as some support (varying, depending on distance traveled) towards the cost of transportation to the conference site. While those who participated in a previous workshop may re-apply and participate again, should space and/or funds be limited, we will prioritize new participants.

The deadline for applications to the Graduate Workshop has been extended to Monday, March 27, 2023.

Please email your applications to lch@lawculturehumanities.com with the subject line: LCH Grad Workshop Application. Please name your file(s) using your lastname first, e.g., “Miller_application” or “Miller_cv.” Please remind us if you applied for or participated in a previous workshop and, if so, which one(s).

2023 Twenty-Fifth Annual Conference
2023-06-22 00:00 - 2023-06-23 23:59 (America/New_York) | University of Toronto School of Law, 78 Queens Park, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 2C5, Canada
Zoom Session – The Place of Race in Law & Literature

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Registration

Conference registration is now closed.

The 2023 LCH conference considers topics broadly related to law and legal studies. In addition, our theme this year is:

ABSENCE, THE PRESENT AND THE PAST

The last few years have been marked by palpable absence: the absence of face-to-face encounters, shared meals, shared lives; the absence of in-person study, of spontaneous meetings in hallways and coffee shops — a seemingly interminable stretch of missed experiences and encounters. As we come back together and restart our offline lives, we carry the absences and missed opportunities of the recent pandemic with us. Absence signals both a void and a clearing: a call for us to be present once more to ourselves and each other. In some instances, we know what we have missed; at other times, we find ourselves surprised and undone by what we have not realized has been missing all this time. To dwell on this absence is not only to live in a state of lament or regret; it is also to imagine the possibilities that arise when we attend closely to what has been missing.

In this spirit of absence as loss and potential, we invite papers from across the disciplines that consider law in relation to absence. How might we conceive of law in the absence of justice, or imagine jurisprudence in the absence of precedent? What juridical potential arises in a moment of crisis and deprivation? What does law miss in entering these moments—and how might law’s missed encounters bring into relief the gaps in the interstices of contemporary culture? What does law miss—and what does it engage—when it serves as a source of social meaning and remediation?

Attendance Options

Our twenty-fifth annual conference will emphasize the LCH tradition of in-person conversation. While we encourage participants to join us in Toronto, we recognize that in-person attendance may be prohibitive for some. To that end, we will also accept submission of virtual panels. Since we will not be providing technical support for virtual participants, panel chairs will be responsible for providing Zoom links that will be listed in the program. All plenary sessions will be available in streaming online as well as in person.

Conference Program and Schedule

The final 2023 conference program (PDF), schedule (online), and quick-view grid (PDF) are now available! Check out the exciting panels happening in Toronto this year!

Final Program (PDF)

Final Schedule (online)

Quick-View Grid (PDF)

Conference Registration

Membership in LCH is required to register for the conference and must be purchased before registration.

A 50% refund will be issued in the event that a participant has to cancel their registration.

Registration must be completed online before the conference. There will be no on-site registration.

As part of the registration process, you will be asked to confirm you have read our COVID policy and will honor it to the best of your ability.

Registration

Registration is now closed.

Conference Fees

The fees for in-person participation are

Graduate students and post-doctoral scholars$35Income less than $75,000$125Income between $75,000-$99,999$155Income between $100,000-$124,999$210Income $125,000 and over$260

The fees to participate remotely are

Graduate students and post-doctoral scholarsFreeIncome less than $75,000$50Income between $75,000-$99,999$50Income between $100,000-$124,999$50Income $125,000 and over$50

Fees for in-person participation will increase by $50 after 1 June, except for graduate students and post-doctoral scholars.

Accommodations

We are informed that the discount for the Anndore has now expired; they may still have rooms available, but at a non-discounted rate. Several other options still remain:

There are a limited number of rooms available at the Chelsea; please act quickly for this option, by using this link for booking and confirmation (approx. $210-250 Can. per night).

Rooms at Massey College remain available to all conference participants until they run out: for a private room, single bed, the cost is $100 (Can.)/night (washroom down the hall, shared with 2-3 other rooms). Massey is about 5 minutes from the law school, and it includes breakfast. https://www.masseycollege.ca/summer-residence-programme/

Rooms at University College are available only to students currently registered at Canadian universities: to reserve a room at University College, which offers accommodations at $40-55/night, you must register via StarRez. Select “University College.” You can create a StarRez ID here. It is also about 5 minutes from the law school.

Graduate Workshop

The LCH Graduate Workshop will be held at University of Toronto on Wednesday, June 21, 2023 (the day before the annual meeting begins). Any questions may be directed to lch@lawculturehumanities.com.

The workshop is designed for graduate students who are undertaking research that cuts across law, cultural studies, literature, philosophy, legal studies, anthropology, political science, and history, among others. The workshop is designed to afford graduate students the opportunity to experience the LCH community in a smaller venue with more sustained contact with one another and some faculty. The workshop also provides graduate students with an opportunity to discuss their research projects in a small group setting in anticipation of such things as job talks and publication.

Workshop Details

Zoom Session - Legality and Affect
2024-03-20 12:00 - 13:30 (America/New_York)
Zoom Session – The Place of Race in Law & Literature

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Birte Christ and Wibke Schniedermann moderate a session on the special edition of the LCH Journal they co-edited entitled Legality and Affect. The speakers are three of the contributors to the special issue: Jeanne Gakeer, Professor Emeritus from Erasmus School of Law, Frans Willem Korsten from Leiden University, and Gerlov van Engelenhoven from Leiden University.

2024 Graduate Student Workshop
2024-05-16 00:00 - 23:59 UTC | University of British Columbia, 2329 West Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 1Z4, Canada
Zoom Session – The Place of Race in Law & Literature

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Interested in attending the workshop?

The application deadline to apply is February 5, 2024.

Please use the subject line: LCH Grad Workshop Application.

Please name your file(s) using your lastname first, e.g. “Miller_application” or “Miller_cv”. Please remind us if you applied for or participated in a previous workshop and, if so, which one(s).

The Annual Association for the Study of Law, Culture, and the Humanities Graduate Student Workshop will be held on Thursday, May 16, 2024 (the day before the annual meeting begins).

The workshop is designed for graduate students who are undertaking research that cuts across law, cultural studies, literature, philosophy, legal studies, anthropology, political science, and history, among others. The workshop is designed to afford graduate students the opportunity to experience the LCH community in a smaller venue with more sustained contact with one another and some faculty. The workshop also provides graduate students with an opportunity to discuss their research projects in a small group setting in anticipation of such things as job talks and publication.

Applications to the workshop should consist of a current curriculum vitae (2-3 page maximum), an abstract of a current project not exceeding 700 words, as well as a short (5- page maximum) text relating to that project. This “text” could be a case, literary work, a time-line, a photo, a sound or video file, or some other relevant text. The text you choose should be something that helps you reflect on the subject of your work and your methods of analysis. Please use your judgment and best guess in deciding how audio, visual, or audio-visual materials “translate” into pages of text.

Applicants whose proposals are accepted will receive some support towards an extra night’s accommodation from LCH as well as some support (varying, depending on distance traveled) towards the cost of transportation to the conference site. While those who participated in a previous workshop may re-apply and participate again, should space and/or funds be limited, we will prioritize new participants. Please email your applications to lch@lawculturehumanities.com by February 5, 2024.

2024 Twenty-Sixth Annual Conference
2024-05-17 00:00 - 2024-05-18 23:59 (America/New_York) | University of British Columbia, 2329 West Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 1Z4, Canada
Zoom Session – The Place of Race in Law & Literature

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Every year, the Association holds it annual conference, usually a two-day affair, as well as a graduate student workshop, usually held on the day before the annual conference. The theme of this year’s conference is “Senses of Law”.

Senses of Law

Law is heard, seen, experienced, felt, and understood in many ways. This year’s theme invites submissions on legal senses, sensibilities, and sensations. What satisfies “the sense of justice”? What makes for a legal sensation? How does law depend on, appeal to, or defy common sense(s)? What are the different sensibilities that law creates, cultivates, challenges, and ignores? How do the meanings that law takes for granted, or brings into being, fall differently on different ears?

Submission Guidelines

The deadline to submit proposals has now passed.

Mode

The twenty-sixth annual conference will emphasize the LCH tradition of in-person conversation. While we encourage participants to join us in Vancouver, we recognize that in-person attendance may be prohibitive for some. To that end, we will also accept the submission of virtual panels.

Since we will not be providing technical support for virtual participants, panel chairs will be responsible for providing Zoom links that will be listed in the program. All plenary sessions will be available streaming online as well as in person.

Attendance Options

Unfortunately, LCH is unable to offer funding support for travel, accommodation, or conference registration costs. Those for whom travel to Vancouver might be prohibitively costly or logistically challenging are warmly encouraged to consider submitting a proposal for an online session. Participants who require a letter of invitation in order to secure a visa to attend the conference are encouraged to reach out to Daniel Kennedy at lch@lawculturehumanities.com.

Contact Information

In case of any query drop us a message at lch@lawculturehumanities.com.

Conference Program and Schedule

The final versions of the 2024 conference program, schedule, and quick-view grid are now available! Check out the exciting panels happening this year!

Program and Schedule

Quick-View Grid

Schedule (with Zoom links)

Conference Registration

Registration is now open, and will close on 10 May. As in previous years, registration will increase by $50 (graduate students are exempt from this late fee) one week before registration closes. In a new approach for the 2024 conference, please note that accepted presenters must register for the conference by 24 April, 2024. Those who do not register by this date will be dropped from the program, to guard against last-minute shifts in panel personnel. Participants who do not appear on the program are welcome to register online up to 10 May.

LCH membership is required to register for the conference and must be purchased before registration.

Please note: there will be no on-site registration at the conference.

Covid Policy: We at LCH remain committed to providing an accessible conference experience. Given loosening protocols in Canada, we have chosen to continue including virtual panels and attendees. Mask wearing is optional for in-person attendees, and we encourage presenters to be in touch with their co-panelists once the program has been finalized regarding decisions around masking during the panel. Please recall that LCH 2024 panels must be either fully online or fully in-person; we are not equipped to support hybrid sessions.

Registration

Accepted presenters must register for the conference by 24 April. All other participants must register by 10 May.

Make sure to become a member before you register.

Become a Member

Conference Fees

The fees for in-person participation are

Graduate students and post-doctoral scholars$35Income less than $75,000$125Income between $75,000-$99,999$155Income between $100,000-$124,999$210Income $125,000 and over$260

The fees to participate remotely are

Graduate students and post-doctoral scholarsFreeIncome less than $75,000$50Income between $75,000-$99,999$50Income between $100,000-$124,999$50Income $125,000 and over$50

Fees for in-person participation will increase by $50 after 3 May, except for graduate students and post-doctoral scholars.

Accommodations

Conference attendees are responsible for making their own travel and lodging arrangements. The following are some suggestions for possible accommodations.

UBC Accommodations

Gage Suites offers Signature Studio ($184 CAD/night) and One Bedroom Suites ($234 CAD/night) which can be booked through the following link. The deadline to reserve at the conference rate is 16 April. Guests can call UBC’s Reservations Office at (604) 822-1000, Ext. 3, or toll free at 1-888-822-1030 and indicate they are with the Law, Culture & the Humanities Conference or mention the Group Code (G240516A) to receive the group rate. Information on the room types can be found here.

Graduate Student Accommodations

Graduate students can book a dorm room at Vanier Place, the UBC Hostel, starting 17 May with a two night minimum starting at $95 CAD/night (please note that you must enter a date no earlier than 17 May, and must book at least 2 nights; otherwise the site will return an error message). Cancellations can be made 24 hours in advance of the first night. The hostel is only available to those who live outside the lower mainland.

Green College is also holding 4 single rooms at the rate of $165 CAD/night for a standard room or $175 CAD/night for a premium room. These rooms include breakfast and dinner, Monday to Friday only. To book these rooms, students can contact the Hospitality Coordinator, Winnie Tam, by email or telephone at (604) 822-8660 and indicate they are booking for the Allard School of Law workshop from 16-18 May.

Zoom Session - Humor and the Law: Laughter as Critique/The Limits of Laughter
2024-05-22 12:00 - 13:30 (America/New_York)
Zoom Session – The Place of Race in Law & Literature

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Andrew Bricker and Alberto Godioli moderate a session on two special issues on humor and the law they co-edited for LCH (Laughter as Critique/The Limits of Laughter) and HUMOR (The Difficulty of Judging Jests). The speakers are Elisa Kriza, Jessica Apolloni, and Diana Jorza.

Zoom Session - Author Meets Critics: Discussing "Before Borders" with Stephanie DeGooyer
2024-07-31 12:00 - 13:30 (America/New_York)
Zoom Session – The Place of Race in Law & Literature

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Stephanie DeGooyer (University of North Carolina) discusses her book, Before Borders: A Legal and Literary History of Naturalization, with Katarina O’Briain (York University) and Nicole Wright (University of Colorado Boulder).

Zoom Session - Research Roundtable: "Sweetness as Power" with Sal Nicolazzo and "Atmospheric Pressures" with Renisa Mawani
2024-08-14 12:00 - 13:30 (America/New_York)
Zoom Session – The Place of Race in Law & Literature

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Sal Nicolazzo (UC Davis) and Renisa Mawani (University of British Columbia) discuss points of convergence in their recent research. Sal shares their work on Richard Ligon’s History of Barbados. They consider what the intense focus on the sensory and the aesthetic in Ligon’s seventeenth-century text teaches us about the evolution of whiteness as property and as a legal status. Renisa presents material from her upcoming paper, “Atmospheric Pressure” on atmospheres and weather.

Zoom Session - Author Meets Critics: Discussing The Unintended with Monica Huerta
2024-09-19 12:00 - 13:30 (America/New_York)
Zoom Session – The Place of Race in Law & Literature

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Monica Huerta discusses her book The Unintended: Photography, Property, and the Aesthetics of Racial Capitalism with Dana Luciano from Rutgers-New Brunswick, Kelli Moore from NYU Steinhardt, and Simon Stern from the University of Toronto.

Zoom Session - Law Poets and Poetry of the Law
2024-09-25 12:00 - 13:30 (America/New_York)
Zoom Session – The Place of Race in Law & Literature

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Sora Han moderates a session on law and poetry. The speakers are Maggie Wang, Josh Aiken, and Lawrence Joseph.

Zoom Session - The War on the Humanities and Transnational Solidarities
2024-10-03 09:00 - 11:00 (America/New_York)
Zoom Session – The Place of Race in Law & Literature

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In 2015, an article in The Guardian highlighted a war being waged against the humanities in the UK, driven by market forces that demand degrees directly linked to job opportunities. According to the article, the market dictates a greater investment in STEM subjects, IT, and environmental studies, which are deemed more valuable for the new world we are entering. This shift requires a de-investment from the humanities. Furthermore, the article reports a stifling decline in student demand for degrees in humanities and social sciences, including literature, history, philosophy, gender studies, and critical theory. This trend is not unique to the UK, as similar challenges to the humanities are ongoing and even more extensive in other regions, such as the USA and Japan.

The inaugural Zoom symposium on Contemporary Issues in Law and Humanities, titled ‘The War on the Humanities and Transnational Solidarities,’ aims to bring together scholars from around the world to examine the global devaluation of the humanities. The symposium will explore its impact on research and teaching and share strategies, projects, and ideas for creative responses. Speakers will be asked to address the following four questions:

How can we form transnational solidarities for the study of law and the humanities?

How does the devaluation of the Humanities manifests itself in the country that you areworking in?

How it affects research in the Humanities/Law and Humanities

What can/is being done to counter this?

Chair: Elena Loizidou (Birkbeck University, School of Law)

Speakers:Stewart Motha (Birkbeck University, School of Law), Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos(University of Westminster, Law), Karin Van Marle (University of Western Cape, Research and Innovation), Debaditya Bhattacharya (Jamia Millia Islamia, Department of English), Julia Bell (Birkbeck University, School of Creative Arts, Culture and Communication), James Martel (San Franscisco State University, Department of Political Science)

Zoom Session - Wheels and Wings: Law, Regulation, and Mass Mobility in the 20th Century
2024-11-20 12:00 - 13:30 (America/New_York)
Zoom Session – The Place of Race in Law & Literature

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Eva Vaillancourt (History, UC Berkeley) and Joanna Grisinger (Law, Northwestern University) bring their recent research projects into conversation.

Eva Vaillancourt, Dept. of History, UC Berkeley

“The Birth of the British Crosswalk: Mystical Lines, Mechanical Obedience, and the Puzzle of Law-as-Infrastructure”

When the first pedestrian crosswalks appeared in Britain in 1934, most people found them baffling, if not a little absurd: how do painted lines on the pavement protect you from oncoming cars? They don’t, one comedian remarked: “But if a car kills you while you are standing in it, the police won’t blame you.” This paper follows the crosswalk’s early career in British tort law, where the meaning of this new technology was hashed out over a series of cases in the late 1930s and 40s. Debate turned on questions of the body in time and space (e.g. How close to the crosswalk does a car have to be before the pedestrian’s decision to assert her right-of-way becomes “unreasonable?”), but also on wider questions about law itself. Is following the state’s rules enough to satisfy your duty of care to your fellow man? Can state regulation replace moral and situational judgment, effectively “automating” the unstable human relationships on which social reproduction depends? Finally, can we rely on legal rules to deliver a person safely from one side of the street to the other, in the same way we’d trust a bridge to deliver us safely across a river? In short, are legal rules a form of infrastructure?

Joanna Grisinger, Center for Legal Studies, Northwestern University

“The Highs and Lows of Airline Travel: Consumer Rights, Airlines, and the Civil Aeronautics Board”

In the 1960s and 1970s, as soon as Americans began traveling by air in record numbers, they began complaining about it. Passengers took offense at race discrimination, sex discrimination, discrimination against physically disabled passengers, discrimination against non-VIPs, delayed and cancelled flights, lost luggage, the lack of seatbelts in airplane bathrooms, and the absence of hot dogs from airline menus. Aggrieved passengers turned to the federal Civil Aeronautics Board, demanding that the federal government put passengers at the center of its regulatory efforts. This clash between competing definitions of the public interest forced the board to reorient its traditional reactive approach to enforcing the law, and to adopt more proactive measures that established rules for passengers and airlines alike.

Zoom Session - Law at the Movies with Stanley Fish
2025-01-15 12:00 - 13:30 (America/New_York)
Zoom Session – The Place of Race in Law & Literature

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Stanley Fish (Cardozo Law) discusses his book Law at the Movies: Turning Legal Doctrine into Art with Simon Stern (University of Toronto), Julie Stone Peters (Columbia University), and Peter Goodrich (Cardozo Law).

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Zoom Session - Choreographic Attunements to the Legal Humanities
2025-01-29 12:00 - 13:30 (America/New_York)
Zoom Session – The Place of Race in Law & Literature

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Anna Kimmel (Dance, George Washington University) and Juan Manuel Aldape Muñoz (Performing and Media Arts, Cornell University) discuss their recent work on law and dance.

Zoom Session - The Built, the Written, the Imagined: Law in Architecture, Architecture in Law
2025-03-19 12:00 - 13:30 (America/New_York)
Zoom Session – The Place of Race in Law & Literature

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Chelsea Spencer (Rice University) and Lisa Haber-Thomson (Mount Holyoke College) bring their recent work into conversation.

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Zoom Session - “Stop Reading! Look!” Law, Politics, and Popular Visual Culture in Weimar Germany
2025-04-30 12:00 - 13:30 (America/New_York)
Zoom Session – The Place of Race in Law & Literature

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The period of the Weimar Republic represents a vital chapter in the history of visual culture. The “watchword of the times” was, according to film critic Erich Burger, “the picture: the still picture, the moving picture, the picture in every guise”. In his aptly titled essay of 1928, “Stop Reading! Look!”, artist Johannes Molzahn captured not only the growing importance of images in everyday life but also the emergence of Weimar culture’s new imperative to look and to see. As part of the ‘cultural turn’ in Weimar historiography, recent scholarship has done much to reveal how visual practices and representations were implicated in contemporary politics. Yet only scant attention has been given to the articulations between law and the visual, and how these relate to the broader political context(s) of the time. In this session, Steven Howe, Laura Petersen and Nicole Schraner (all University of Lucerne) will introduce aspects of their current project that addresses this gap in the literature, and which aims to explore some of the many ways in which the legal, political and visual cultures of the era intersect and interact.

The session will feature short presentations on cinema (Howe), visual art (Petersen) and photography (Schraner), followed by a Q&A.

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2025 Graduate Student Workshop
2025-06-16 00:00 - 23:59 UTC | Georgetown Law, 600 New Jersey Avenue, N.W., Washington, District of Columbia, 20001, United States
Zoom Session – The Place of Race in Law & Literature

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Interested in attending the workshop?

The application deadline is February 5, 2025.

Please use the subject line: LCH Grad Workshop Application.

Please name your file(s) using your lastname first, e.g. “Miller_application” or “Miller_cv”. Please remind us if you applied for or participated in a previous workshop and, if so, which one(s).

Submit your application

The annual Association for the Study of Law, Culture, and the Humanities Graduate Student Workshop will be held on Monday, June 16, 2025 (the day before the annual meeting begins).

The workshop is designed for graduate students who are undertaking research that cuts across law, cultural studies, literature, philosophy, legal studies, anthropology, political science, and history, among others. The workshop is designed to afford graduate students the opportunity to experience the LCH community in a smaller venue with more sustained contact with one another and some faculty. The workshop also provides graduate students with an opportunity to discuss their research projects in a small group setting in anticipation of such things as job talks and publication.

Applications to the workshop should consist of a current curriculum vitae (2-3 page maximum), an abstract of a current project not exceeding 700 words that explicitly addresses how it relates to law, culture and the humanities, as well as a short (5 page maximum) text relating to that project. This “text” could be a case, literary work, a time-line, a photo, a sound or video file, or some other relevant text. The text you choose should be something that helps you reflect on the subject of your work and your methods of analysis. Please use your judgment and best guess in deciding how audio, visual, or audio-visual materials “translate” into pages of text.

While it is possible to participate in both the workshop and the LCH annual conference, the two events are separate and require separate applications. Should workshop participants wish to present at the conference as well, they will need to submit a proposal here (in addition to their workshop application). Should workshop participants wish to attend the conference but not present a paper, they will need to register (once registration for the conference becomes available).

Applicants whose workshop proposals are accepted will receive some support towards an extra night’s accommodation from LCH as well as some support (varying, depending on distance traveled) towards the cost of transportation to the conference site. While those who participated in a previous workshop may re-apply and participate again, should space and/or funds be limited, we will prioritize new participants. Please email your applications to lch@lawculturehumanities.com by February 5, 2025.

2025 Twenty-Seventh Annual Conference
2025-06-17 00:00 - 2025-06-18 23:59 (America/New_York) | Georgetown Law, 600 New Jersey Avenue, N.W., Washington, District of Columbia, 20001, United States
Zoom Session – The Place of Race in Law & Literature

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Every year, the Association holds it annual conference, usually a two-day affair, as well as a graduate student workshop, usually held on the day before the annual conference. The 2025 annual meeting will be held at Georgetown Law from June 17-18th. The theme of the conference, our call for papers, and submissions guidelines can be found below:

Speech Matters

We live in a golden or an iron age, depending on one’s point of view, for laws regulating speech. The COVID-19 pandemic forced governments around the world to reckon with floods of dis- and misinformation. The global rise of the far right has brought with it a need for new legal tools to combat threats, harassment, and hate speech. And in the United States, state and local governments have attempted to suppress speech by or about unpopular subjects through means ranging from book bans to felony prosecutions. For this year’s Law, Culture, and Humanities Annual Conference, we invite papers on how the law conceptualizes, regulates, commodifies, or instrumentalizes speech (broadly defined not just as language but as expressive activity). In particular, we welcome papers that use humanistic tools for making sense of speech and expression—concepts from rhetoric, narrative theory, aesthetics, genre studies, and more—to tackle new or persistent legal puzzles.

Mode

The twenty-seventh annual conference will emphasize the LCH tradition of in-person conversation. While we encourage participants to join us in Washington, D.C., we recognize that in-person attendance may be prohibitive for some. To that end, we will also accept the submission of virtual panels.

Since we will not be providing technical support for virtual participants, panel chairs will be responsible for providing Zoom links that will be listed in the program. All plenary sessions will be available streaming online as well as in person.

Conference Registration

Registration for the conference is closed.

Schedule

The full conference program and a shorter schedule at glance can be found here:

Program and schedule

Schedule at a glance

Submission Deadline

Submissions are currently closed.

Accommodations

Conference attendees are responsible for making their own travel and lodging arrangements.

Book Exhibit

We expect to have a place to display recently published books. If you would like to display yours, please bring a copy and we will be happy to include it.

Contact Information

Please email lch@lawculturehumanities.com with any queries.

Zoom Session - The Place of Race in Law & Literature
2026-04-24 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York)
Zoom Session – The Place of Race in Law & Literature

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Elise Wang (CSU-Fullerton) moderates a discussion with Faith Barter (U Oregon), Jess A. Goldberg (New Mexico Highlands U), and Nicole Mansfield Wright (U of Colorado – Boulder) about their contributions to the recent issue of the European Journal of English Studies on The Place of Race of Law & Literature.

2026 Graduate Student Workshop
2026-06-16 00:00 - 23:59 UTC | DePaul University College of Law, 25 E Jackson Blvd., Chicago, Illinois, 60604, United States
Zoom Session – The Place of Race in Law & Literature

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The annual Association for the Study of Law, Culture, and the Humanities Graduate Student Workshop will be held on Monday, June 16, 2026 (the day before the annual meeting begins).

The workshop is designed for graduate students who are undertaking research that cuts across law, cultural studies, literature, philosophy, legal studies, anthropology, political science, and history, among others. The workshop is designed to afford graduate students the opportunity to experience the LCH community in a smaller venue with more sustained contact with one another and some faculty. The workshop also provides graduate students with an opportunity to discuss their research projects in a small group setting in anticipation of such things as job talks and publication.

Applications to the workshop should consist of a current curriculum vitae (2-3 page maximum), an abstract of a current project not exceeding 700 words that explicitly addresses how it relates to law, culture and the humanities, as well as a short (5 page maximum) text relating to that project. This “text” could be a case, literary work, a time-line, a photo, a sound or video file, or some other relevant text. The text you choose should be something that helps you reflect on the subject of your work and your methods of analysis. Please use your judgment and best guess in deciding how audio, visual, or audio-visual materials “translate” into pages of text.

While it is possible to participate in both the workshop and the LCH annual conference, the two events are separate and require separate applications. Should workshop participants wish to present at the conference as well, they will need to submit a proposal here (in addition to their workshop application). Should workshop participants wish to attend the conference but not present a paper, they will need to register (once registration for the conference becomes available).

Applicants whose workshop proposals are accepted will receive some support towards an extra night’s accommodation from LCH as well as some support (varying, depending on distance traveled) towards the cost of transportation to the conference site. While those who participated in a previous workshop may re-apply and participate again, should space and/or funds be limited, we will prioritize new participants. Please email your applications to lch@lawculturehumanities.com by February 5, 2026.

2026 Twenty-Eighth Annual Conference
2026-06-17 08:00 - 2026-06-18 19:00 (America/New_York) | DEPAUL CENTER, 1 E. JACKSON, CHICAGO, IL 60604, 8TH FLOOR, 25 E Jackson Blvd., Chicago, Illinois, 60604, United States
Zoom Session – The Place of Race in Law & Literature

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Every year, the Association holds it annual conference, usually a two-day affair, as well as a graduate student workshop, usually held the day before the annual conference. The 2026 annual meeting will be held at the DePaul University College of Law from June 17-18th. Our call for papers and submissions guidelines can be found below:

Uprooted Law: Reflecting on the Origins and Outgrowths of Law

What do we follow when we follow the law? Is law what is on the books, or what is observed, or what should be observed? The English term “law” descends from the plural form of the Old Norse “lag,” designating “things laid down or fixed.” Yet law must be flexible enough to adjust and respond to changes. Particularly today, when the line between legal norms and norms rooted elsewhere has blurred, it is difficult to determine law’s location. What is law’s function in times of technological, political, and societal change? Does the law have a responsibility toward itself, and if so, who can be trusted with its observation? Given that law borrows from other areas of culture, from literature and rhetoric to the sciences and dramatic arts, the humanities are in a premier position to respond to these questions.

This conference invites reflections on the origins of law in the broadest sense. What substantiates the rule of law in practice, and how does law itself mediate the difference between original and copy, present and past? How do an ensemble of methods, disciplines, movements, texts, and technologies come together to help law create the past and future? We invite reflections on these and related questions and welcome papers, roundtables, and work-in-progress sessions that help us understand law’s current position by looking at it through a humanistic lens.

Submission Guidelines

We encourage the submission of fully constituted panels, as well as panels that reimagine or experiment with models for academic presentation, such as roundtables, “author meets reader” sessions (which may include multiple books and their authors in conversation), works-in-progress sessions, workshop-format panels that focus on engaging participants in shared thinking or other kinds of productive co-creation, multi-panel streams, etc. Individual proposals should include a title and an abstract of no more than 250 words.

Panels, whether virtual or in-person, should include three papers (or, exceptionally, four papers). Please specify a title and designate a chair for your panel. The panel chair may also be a panel presenter. It is not necessary to write an abstract or proposal for the panel itself.

To indicate your pre-constituted panel, roundtable, or stream, please ensure that each individual participant provides the name of the panel and the chair in their individual submissions on the registration site. All panel, roundtable, or stream participants must make an individual submission on the registration site. When submitting a proposal, we also ask that registrants identify two to three keywords to help us align sessions with each other.

Mode

The twenty-eighth annual conference will emphasize the LCH tradition of in-person conversation. While we encourage participants to join us in Chicago, we recognize that in-person attendance may be prohibitive for some. To that end, we will also accept the submission of virtual panels and papers.

Since we will not be providing technical support for virtual participants, panel chairs will be responsible for providing Zoom links that will be listed in the program. All plenary sessions will be available streaming online as well as in person.

Conference Registration

Registration for the conference is now open. You can access registration via the LCH member portal by following the link below. Registration will increase by $50 on June 10, 2026, one week before the conference begins (graduate students are exempt from this late fee).

Accepted presenters must register for the conference by May 11, 2026. Please note: those who do not register by this date will be dropped from the program to guard against last-minute shifts in panel personnel. Participants who do not appear on the program are welcome to register online any time prior to the conference. If you need to cancel your registration for the conference for any reason, we will refund you 50% of the fee.

Registration requires membership to the Association for Study of Law, Culture, & the Humanities, which can be purchased by following the link below.

Become a member

Register for the conference

Schedule

Check out the draft schedule for this year’s conference below. Please note: the schedule is still subject to change. A final version will be available soon.

Schedule at a Glance

Program and Schedule

Accommodations

Conference attendees are responsible for making their own travel and lodging arrangements. The following are some suggestions for possible accommodations; we have not made arrangements with any of them, and our suggestion is based only on nearness to DePaul and their current rates for June 16-19:

Hotel Felix, 111 W. Huron St.Ohio House Motel, 600 N. La Salle Dr.Royal Sonesta, 505 N. State St.Freehand Chicago, 19 E. Ohio St.

We may be able to secure a discount rate for a closer hotel, and will let you in the next few weeks if that is possible.

Book Exhibit

We invite anyone who would like to be included in the book display to bring your own book and leave it at the registration desk; there will be a display nearby to showcase LCH members’ work. We are trying something new this year: when you drop off your book, please indicate whether you’d like to give it away, by raffle, at the end of the conference or retrieve it. At the closing reception, we’ll have a raffle, with preference for graduate students, postdocs, assistant professors, independent scholars, and international participants.

Submission Deadline

Submissions are currently closed.

Contact Information

Please email lch@lawculturehumanities.com with any queries.
