Law, Culture, and the Humanities

Zoom Session - Law at the Movies with Stanley Fish
2025-01-15 12:00 - 13:30 (America/New_York)
Zoom Session – Author Meets Critics: Discussing “Before Borders” with Stephanie DeGooyer

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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 – Author Meets Critics: Discussing “Before Borders” with Stephanie DeGooyer

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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 – Author Meets Critics: Discussing “Before Borders” with Stephanie DeGooyer

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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 – Author Meets Critics: Discussing “Before Borders” with Stephanie DeGooyer

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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 – Author Meets Critics: Discussing “Before Borders” with Stephanie DeGooyer

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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 – Author Meets Critics: Discussing “Before Borders” with Stephanie DeGooyer

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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 – Author Meets Critics: Discussing “Before Borders” with Stephanie DeGooyer

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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 – Author Meets Critics: Discussing “Before Borders” with Stephanie DeGooyer

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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 – Author Meets Critics: Discussing “Before Borders” with Stephanie DeGooyer

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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.
