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Google+Cassirer’s work on the Enlightenment is quite unlike many of the other works of science studies I have worked on over the last couple of years.
Yearly Archives: 2010
The 1971 Supreme Court on WikiLeaks
In that 1971 case, New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 US 713, the Court ruled against an attempt by the Nixon Administration “to enjoin the New York Times and the Washington Post from publishing the contents of a classified study entitled ‘History of U. S. Decision-Making Process on Viet Nam Policy.”
Review of “Changing Fashions in Advocacy: 100 Years of Brief-Writing Advice”
Helen A. Anderson of the University of Washington School of Law brings us “Changing Fashions in Advocacy: 100 Years of Brief-Writing Advice.”
Science and Sociability in Mary Terrall’s The Man Who Flattened the Earth: Maupertuis and the Sciences in the Enlightenment
For the enlightened of the mid-eighteenth century, the most fundamental aspect of their enlightenment was “sociability,” according to Mary Terrall in The Man Who Flattened the Earth.
Five useful blogging tools
Looking for some useful tools that can help enhance your blog and your blogging? Here’s a list of some of my favorites.
Thinking about theories of historiography
Recently, I’ve been struck by the sense that what seems to drive history as a profession is not specifically the investigation of new archives, new materials, new places, or new times, but rather simply the larger desire to always pursue what is new qua new.
A quick history of the changing lengths of copyright protection
Since its codification in Britain in 1710, the length of copyright protection has continued to be extended, from an initial 14 years to today’s 70-120 or more years.
Considering comparative approaches in legal histories
I have proposed comparative/transnational approaches between legal and societal understandings of privacy in the face of new technologies. Micol Siegel’s work suggests that I should, at the very least, consider my approach more critically.
Going beyond national legal histories
“Lived history,” writes Bender, “is embedded in a plenitude of narratives. … [O]ver time, different themes or concepts, different narratives, will be deemed significant and emphasized” (page 1). The “plenitude of narratives” is formed by the stories historians tell about the past, by people at the time speaking and living their own experiences, by groups (ethnicities, races, classes, nations, cities) sharing common understandings, and is thus never simple nor unitary.
Changing technology, changing expectations of privacy
My goal here is to compare and contrast the legal changes that occurred as new technologies–state-run postal services, the telegraph, the telephone, and email, for example–emerged, and through this to seek insight into these larger questions.
Dorinda Outram on the Enlightenment
In her book The Enlightenment, Dorinda Outram gives a broad introduction to the history and historiography of the Enlightenment.
Technology and the archive
One of the primary interests of mine is the connection between technology and law. The development of archives is one place where this connection plays out in practice. This I am deeply interested in the question presented by Schwartz and Cook present as to what the impact of new technologies–like “postal services, the telegraph, the telephone, radio, photography”–was on “on the production, preservation, and use of records and archives since the mid-nineteenth century.”
The archive and the state
Archives, the collection of files and materials (electronic or physical) stored and maintained for future reference, have an intimate connection with state power–after all, those who are in power fund and create them, leading archives to reflect the ideas, beliefs and sometimes contradictions of those who control them.
Fashion fakes: copyright, trademark and creativity
There is no protection from copying designs in the fashion industry, so how can police crackdown on knock-offs?
Measuring the impact of technology on the law
It’s difficult to come up with more quantitative measurements to look at how technology has impacted law. One could look at the development of new technologies (via patent applications, perhaps?) and then look to see how soon afterwards the invention began to show up in legal cases. Another interesting idea would be to see if changes in technology–the development of new citation systems, more rapid dissemination of decisions and publications, and later the creation of electronic repositories such as Lexis and Westlaw–had any impact on the way lawyers and judges developed law.
Juries and scientific expertise
In the American system (and, perhaps to a lesser extent, in all countries following the Anglo-American legal approach), science and scientific evidence emerges and is interpreted through the actions of the parties involved. Expert witnesses testify for a particular side, and are employed by a particular side.
