Simon Stern

British Law and Literature in the Long Eighteenth Century | Cambridge University Press & Assessment

British Law and Literature in the Long Eighteenth Century www.cambridge.org/us/universit...

not to mention the cost of curtilage!

"Something painful encloses something joyful and now I am enclosing that painful thing as a way to assert my joy." -- Robert Gluck, "Denny Smith"

The New Old Style - Nebraska Press

Preorder here!

Cover of a book titled The New Old Style: Anachronism in Contemporary Comics, by Matthew Levay. The cover features three vertically-arranged panels. The middle features the book’s title against a black background, while the top and bottom feature colorful drawings of a boy with white circles for eyes, done in a style clearly reminiscent of 1920s and 1930s-era newspaper comics and designed to appear as if they are printed on old newsprint.

Absolutely thrilled with the cover @univnebpress.bsky.social has designed for my book, The New Old Style: Anachronism in Contemporary Comics (coming August ‘26)! And special thanks to the wonderful and generous Cole Closser for allowing me to use their art.

By implication he responds to her statement that she has acted "to the best of [her] ability" but it's interesting that the judge doesn't comment more directly on that part. That is to say -- maybe she did act to the best of her ability, and if so, what does that say about her ability?

"[I]t strains credulity to think the RIF was 'uncertain[]' or 'a mere possibility' as the defendants repeatedly represented to this Court. ... The defendants' obfuscation ... has wasted precious judicial time and would readily support contempt proceedings."

@valancourtbooks.bsky.social

@benjaminnathans.bsky.social latest book To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause has been #shortlisted for The 2025 Cundill History Prize. Listen to his interview on @historyextra.bsky.social with Danny Bird here: buff.ly/FgwuOEL

Honestly, it is so hilariously inept that it reads as satire.

I have been studying and teaching First Amendment law for more than forty years, and in all that time I have been more or less confident that basic minima of freedom of speech would remain unscathed in the United States. It was the one constitutional right that inspired widespread allegiance and agreement. But this week, for the first time, I have become frightened that freedom of speech in America might actually be endangered. Authoritarianism, with its trademark suppression of free political discussion, looms on our horizon. Wheel of power Since the 1930s, when the Supreme Court first began to protect First Amendment rights, it has safeguarded freedom of speech because “the maintenance of the opportunity for free political discussion to the end that government may be responsive to the will of the people and that changes may be obtained by lawful means, an opportunity essential to the security of the Republic, is a fundamental principle of our constitutional system.” For all its many failings and lapses, the American Court has largely defended the First Amendment “as the guardian of our democracy,” seeking to construct a system in which “authority . . . is to be controlled by public opinion, not public opin­ion by authority.” The First Amendment embodies the basic Aristotelian principle of democracy: citizens must agree to take turns ruling and being ruled. Those out of power can make their case in the public sphere to alter public opinion and take control of government in the next election. Free speech ensures that those who are ruled will have the opportunity to persuade others to invest them with the authority to rule in the future. Free speech turns the wheel of power. To suppress speech is to freeze that wheel. It is to choke off pathways of change and hence, as Louis Brandeis pointed out long ago, “to discourage thought, hope and imagination” by stoking the “hate” of the repressed, which constitutes a “menace” to “stable government.”

Full text at https://verfassungsblog.de/turn-against-free-speech-america/

In "Falling Far and Fast," Yale Law Dean Robert Post, a leading First Amendment Scholar, writes that "for the first time, I have become frightened that freedom of speech in America might actually be endangered." verfassungsblog.de/turn-against...

LCH 2026 Conference Scheduled for June 17-18, 2026 at DePaul College of Law / @simon8.bsky.social
lawlit.blogspot.com/2025/09/lch-...

British Law and Literature in the Long Eighteenth Century Cambridge Core - Legal History - British Law and Literature in the Long Eighteenth Century

Now available electronically, if your library subscribes to Cambridge Core: Melissa Ganz, ed., British Law and Literature in the Long Eighteenth Century www.cambridge.org/core/books/b...

Say Hello to Metamodernism!: Understanding Today’s Culture of Ironesty, Felt Experience, and Emphatic Reflexivity Published in English Studies (Ahead of Print, 2025)

My book, _Say Hello to Metamodernism!_ has been reviewed in the journal _English Studies_, which I understand is a rather prestigious European journal. It's overall a positive review, with a few gentle critiques, which I like because it makes it feel more real.
www.tandfonline.com/eprint/FTKAC...

do you even have to do that, in 1967? I mean, I see that it's a good idea, but I imagine many don't see the need for it.

Reading and writing race in law and literature Published in European Journal of English Studies (Ahead of Print, 2025)

my piece on "Reading and Writing Race in Law and Literature" is out in advance online, European Journal of English Studies - www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Jolene Zigarovich, Absent Husbands & Scandalous Plots: Presumption of Death & Its Bigamous Consequences journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... @lpcprof.bsky.social @lawandhistrev.bsky.social @womenknowlaw.bsky.social @lch-law-cult-hum.bsky.social @law-and-humanities.bsky.social @faithbee.bsky.social

Paycor Job Openings at Monticello

Job opportunity for an historian at Monticello. This is the 4th time they've tried to fill the role this year (they seem to have given up trying to find a senior person and have dropped the PhD requirement). DM me if you want to know what it's like to work there.

www.monticello.org/thomas-jeffe...

Beth Boyens “Liable to the Vagrant Act”: Melancholic Vagrancy in Lydia Maria Child’s Hobomok and Letters from New York: in ESQ: muse.jhu.edu/pub/84/artic... "Child aligns the female writer with the prostitute, female loiterer, and wanderer at whom the Vagrant Act was directed" @lpcprof.bsky.social

📣Call for Papers 📣

I am delighted to announce that 'Speech/less in the Early Modern World' will be held 23 April 2026 at Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge.

Please share far and wide and do consider submitting a proposal! 🙊

Link to PDF version: bit.ly/4lZz80R

could it be the 2006 "80th anniversary" ed.? reviews of that ed. quote this phrase as part of the publisher's billing

The Case of the blubbery blueberry

Did they at least name the hotel Paradise?

@lawandhistrev.bsky.social @jgienapp.bsky.social @geoffreykirsch.bsky.social @lawhumanitiesca.bsky.social @juliestonepeters.bsky.social @nomideplume.bsky.social ‬

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Jonathan Atkins, Ratification’s Reason journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.... : ratification as an act of legal poiesis, a formal and poetic making of legitimacy theorized in terms of poetics @lpcprof.bsky.social @lch-law-cult-hum.bsky.social @law-and-humanities.bsky.social @law.stanford.edu

‪@engagedroadmap.bsky.social‬
@oatp.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy ‬
@oabooksnetwork.bsky.social
@oaspa.bsky.social
@ojcollective.bsky.social

Katharina Herget @kherget.bsky.social‬ & Thomas Weitin, Law as a Narrative Source: The Criminal Case Studies of Der Neue Pitaval openhumanitiesdata.metajnl.com/articles/10....

570 criminal case studies

published as OA resource

fantastic source law/narrative/history

@lpcprof.bsky.social

Michael Lind Menna, "The Esquire and the Pettifogger: Reintroducing James Cobbe and Rethinking his Alopichos,": "the investigation of Cobbe’s commitment to the study and practice of law implicates an investigation of his enthusiasm for the theatre, and vice versa" muse.jhu.edu/pub/286/arti...

Khan on Civil Rights Lawyering and the Reconstruction of Law and Literature / H/t @simon8.bsky.social
lawlit.blogspot.com/2025/07/khan...