Episodes
Tuesday Aug 06, 2019
EPISODE 12: Hendrik Hartog
Tuesday Aug 06, 2019
Tuesday Aug 06, 2019
In this podcast, Siobhan talks with Hendrik Hartog about his book The Trouble with Minna: A Case of Slavery and Emancipation in the Antebellum North (UNC Press, 2018). The Trouble with Minna is also used as a vessel to explore some of the topics discussed in Law and Social Inquiry's May 2019 “Review Symposium: Retrospective on the Work of Hendrik Hartog.” Hartog is the Class of 1921 Bicentennial Professor in the History of American Law and Liberty, Emeritus at Princeton University.
This episode is the first in a series featuring legal history works from UNC Press. Support for the production of this series was provided by the Versatile Humanists at Duke program.
Monday Jul 15, 2019
EPISODE 11: Paul Finkelman
Monday Jul 15, 2019
Monday Jul 15, 2019
In this podcast, Siobhan talks with Paul Finkelman, President of Gratz College, about his book Supreme Injustice: Slavery in the Nation’s Highest Court (HUP, 2018). Finkelman is a specialist on the history of slavery and the law. He is also the author of more than 200 scholarly articles and the author or editor of more than fifty books on a broad range of topics including American Jewish history, American legal history, constitutional law, and legal issues surrounding baseball.
Saturday May 25, 2019
EPISODE 10: Martha Jones
Saturday May 25, 2019
Saturday May 25, 2019
In this podcast, Siobhan talks with Martha S. Jones, Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor and Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University, about her book Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America (CUP, 2018). Professor Jones is a legal and cultural historian whose interests include the study of race, law, citizenship, slavery, and the rights of women. Birthright Citizens explores how African Americans in antebellum Baltimore constituted their right to citizenship in legal venues.
Saturday May 25, 2019
EPISODE 9: Holly Brewer
Saturday May 25, 2019
Saturday May 25, 2019
In this podcast, Siobhan talks with Holly Brewer, Burke Chair of American History and Associate Professor at the University of Maryland, about her October 2017 article in the American Historical Review, “Slavery, Sovereignty and ‘Inheritable Blood’: Reconsidering John Locke and the Origins of American Slavery.” She is a specialist in early American history and the early British Empire. The article is part of a larger book project that will situate the origins of American slavery in the ideas and legal practices associated with the divine rights of kings, tentatively entitled “Inheritable Blood: Slavery & Sovereignty in Early America and the British Empire.”
Saturday May 25, 2019
EPISODE 8: Fahad Ahmad Bishara
Saturday May 25, 2019
Saturday May 25, 2019
In this episode, Siobhan talks with Fahad Ahmad Bishara, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Virginia, about his book A Sea of Debt: Law and Economic Life in the Western Indian Ocean, 1780-1950. He specializes in the economic and legal history of the Indian Ocean and Islamic world. Bishara discusses his sophisticated work that explores the intricate legal and economic regimes that traversed the Western Indian Ocean for generations. He also talks about how he effectively mined legal documents to craft this narrative.
Saturday May 25, 2019
EPISODE 7: Daniel Sharfstein
Saturday May 25, 2019
Saturday May 25, 2019
In this episode, Siobhan interviews Daniel J. Sharfstein, professor of law and history and co-director of the George Barrett Social Justice Program at Vanderbilt University, about his book Thunder in the Mountains: Chief Joseph, Oliver Otis Howard and the Nez Perce War. Sharfstein’s scholarship focuses on the legal history of race in the United States. In this discussion, he explores ideas of law, society, and politics through his compelling narrative about the Nez Perce War.
Saturday May 25, 2019
EPISODE 6: Eric Foner
Saturday May 25, 2019
Saturday May 25, 2019
In this episode, Siobhan discusses law in the Reconstruction era with Eric Foner, the Dewitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University. Foner, the author of seminal work Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, has dedicated much of the last year to public outreach about Reconstruction to mark its 150th anniversary.
Saturday May 25, 2019
EPISODE 5: William Domnarski
Saturday May 25, 2019
Saturday May 25, 2019
In this episode, Siobhan interviews attorney and author William Domnarski about his new biography of Richard Posner, an influential judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and great force behind the law and economics movement. Domnarski candidly sets forth the factors which underlie an individual who is arguably the most influential legal mind of the past half-century. With the full cooperation of his subject, Domnarski had access to Posner’s letters and to many individuals who may have been unwilling to speak without the approval of Posner himself. Domnarski explores important themes within law and the judiciary while also keeping the reader invested in a very human story.
Saturday May 25, 2019
EPISODE 4: Al Brophy
Saturday May 25, 2019
Saturday May 25, 2019
In this episode, Siobhan meets with University, Court and Slave: Pro-Slavery Thought in Southern Colleges and Courts and the Coming of Civil War author Alfred L. Brophy, the Judge John J. Parker Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of North Carolina School of Law. In his new book, Brophy brings to life the dynamic interplay between law and culture by mapping out the crisscrossing intellectual paths between southern courts and universities in the mid-nineteenth century. Brophy discusses the pro-slavery polemics that were delivered by southern lawyers, judges, and politicians to university students. At the same time, he shows how pro-slavery ideas fomented in the academy heavily influenced judicial reasoning in southern courtrooms and exposes some of the horrors endured by enslaved people living on university campuses.
Saturday May 25, 2019
EPISODE 3: Sara L. Crosby
Saturday May 25, 2019
Saturday May 25, 2019
In this episode, Siobhan talks with Associate Professor of English at The Ohio State University at Marion, Sara L. Crosby, about her new book, Poisonous Muse: The Female Poisoner and the Framing of Popular Authorship in Jacksonian America. Crosby discusses how the trope of the female poisoner permeated popular literature in the mid-nineteenth century. In her analysis of the 1840 murder trial of Hannah Kinney, we see how the partisan press used the accused as a vessel through which to fight-out central political battles of the day. We then see how jury decisions may serve as a metric for determining which metaphors and cultural frames are prevailing at a point in time. Following a popular metaphor enables Crosby to track the cultural tides influencing law and politics in Jacksonian America.