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.
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