British Legal History Conference 2024 - Insiders and Outsiders in the History of Law
Abstracts are invited for the 26th British Legal History Conference, which will take place at the University of Bristol from Wednesday 3 July to Saturday 6 July 2024.
The conference theme is ‘Insiders and Outsiders in the History of Law’.
Participants will be encouraged to explore the theme by reflecting on dividing lines drawn in the history of the law, and on who, or what, is within and without them.
Insiders, for example, may be lawyers, judges, parliamentarians, monarchs, and others with the power to influence law and its enforcement. Outsiders may be those often left out of, or marginalised in, classical accounts of legal history: for example, women, outlaws, colonial subjects, and enslaved people.
Consideration of insiders and outsiders also prompts us to examine jurisdictional dividing lines and classificatory rules, including substantive doctrinal boundaries and the borders between legal systems.
Moreover, the theme invites reflections on the study of legal history itself: which subjects and methods, and whose voices, are inside or outside our discipline?