The Lillian Goldman Law Library, in partnership with Law Library Journal, invites paper proposals for a symposium on the Legal Treatise to be held at Yale Law School on Friday, March 24, 2023.
The purpose of this symposium is to examine the many aspects of the history, present circumstances, and future of the legal treatise as a source and genre. Possible topics include but are not limited to: the origins of the treatise, the role of the treatise in English and American law practice and legal culture during particular periods in history, the commodification of the treatise, international and comparative perspectives on the treatise, microhistories of specific treatise titles, biographical accounts of treatise writers, rivalries between treatise writers, treatise authorship successions, reflections on contemporary treatise writing and publishing, the rise of the scholarly monograph, the (in)accessibility of the treatise, the transition of the treatise from a print resource to an electronic resource, the decline of the multi-volume treatise in law practice and legal scholarship, and theories about and proposals for the future of the treatise.
Please send proposals in the form of an abstract to Nicholas Mignanelli at nicholas.mignanelli@yale.edu. Please be sure to include your name, institutional affiliation (if applicable), and contact information in your email. Those whose proposals are accepted will be invited to present at the symposium and will have the opportunity to publish their paper in Law Library Journal. Early-career and previously unpublished scholars, as well as previously published authors, are encouraged to submit. The submissions deadline is June 1, 2022.
