Matthew Erie

Legal surrealism.

…Life imitating art imitating life…

Free Rahile.

Congratulations, @josephtorigian.bsky.social!

“We are the problem.”

Absolutely agree.

And the thing is - we can do something about that.

Act now.

Petition. Protest. Teach. Write. Voice.

🔴 Starting Dec 1, CHRD is featuring 10 human rights defenders wrongfully imprisoned for 10+ years as we count down to #IntlHumanRightsDay on Dec 10. By commemorating their struggle, we highlight the plight of all imprisoned defenders across 🇨🇳. Join us to demand their #freedom!

Congrats, @jeffreyding.bsky.social!

A win for our judicial system.

On Nov. 14 & 15, I was fortunate to attend a special conference to honor the life & works of Professor Frank Upham of NYU Law School who is retiring. Frank’s approach to understanding the relationships b/w law, politics, & ideology in comparative & socio-legal studies has left a profound legacy.

Looking forward to returning to the #AmericanAnthropologicalAssociation annual meeting after about a 10-year hiatus. If there was ever a time to think outside the box, this is it, and anthros are trained to do exactly that.

Excited to participate in these 2 China legal anthro events.

#legalanthro

Sorry to hear this, @lauratmurphy.bsky.social. Let me know if you come to DC. Would be great to have you speak to my class.

Hope.

let no one say that law professors aren't having impact right now

A hundred times over.

Inspiring to attend the 2025 #ASCL meeting @ McGill University to discuss law & democracy, decolonization of comparative law, and emerging international orders. A pleasure to organize the panel "ASCL Studies in Comparative Law New Book Panel: Asia, the Global South, and the New Comparative Law."

To hit back at the United States in their trade war, China borrows from the US playbook China has expanded its export rules on rare earths, requiring foreign firms to get approval for exporting products containing even small amounts of China-originated materials.

China mimics US foreign direct products rule:

apnews.com/article/chin...

China is indeed learning from US “extraterritoriality.” The US is creating its own Frankenstein.

For a deeper dive on what I call “Adversarial Comparativism”, see papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

A Compact for Control (opinion) No self-respecting institution of higher education should accept the Trump administration’s unconstitutional terms, Robert Post and Tom Ginsburg write.

A must read. www.insidehighered.com/opinion/view...

Go Big Green!

(BA ‘99)

Citizen historians document Smithsonian exhibits under White House scrutiny The Smithsonian Institution is the world’s largest museum, education and research complex. It's a public-private trust that has long operated at arm's length from the White House, but now finds itself...

Proud to be Captain of the National Postal Museum. Shout out to the volunteers I’m working with. Citizens are heroes, too.

#savetheSmithsonian

www.pbs.org/newshour/sho...

After 7 yrs of work, the special issue "China in Compliance" is out with @reggovjournal.bsky.social. The focus is to unpack how #compliance works in globalizing China. #Cambodia #Kyrgyzstan #Tajikistan #Fiji #Vanuatu #Singapore #Taiwan #Ethiopia #Hungary

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/toc/10.1...

Hiring Announcement: PoLAR Managing Editor PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review, the journal of the Association for Political and Legal Anthropology (APLA), is hiring a Managing Editor. PoLAR is in an exciting transformational sta…

PoLAR is hiring a new managing editor. The full details are available here: shorturl.at/uqEn5

These figures rebut the “whataboutism” line of the administration.

Donate to Marathon swim for people experiencing homelessness in D.C., organized by Rebecca Hamilton People experiencing homelessness in Washington, D.C. are havi… Rebecca Hamilton needs your support for Marathon swim for people experiencing homelessness in D.C.

My amazing colleague Bec Hamilton is swimming 20km to raise money for Charlie's Place, a drop-in shelter for homeless in #WashingtonDC whose numbers and hardships are increasing of late. Please consider giving here: www.gofundme.com/f/swim-for-c...

Thank you.

"We should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low wage job. Rather than stand idly by while our constitutional freedoms are lost, I dissent." —Justice Sonia Sotomayor

The incremental normalization of life under authoritarianism is one of its defining features.

Authoritarianism is often not a rupture but, rather, a slow tear.

*Every* day we must be vigilant to this fact.

Introverts, unite!

Yes!

Inspiring and on such a hot and humid day!

This is what democracy looks like! A people united will never be defeated. We want federal forces out of DC NOW! #WeAreAllDC #FreeDC

#FreeDC Mass march hitting the streets of DC now.

“The follow-up message is that for those of us who are not Supreme Court justices or Republican legislators should resist every day in every way we can. Put sand in the gears, make it slower, make everybody else know that we are not alone, and that there are more of us than there are of them.”