Legal Commons^™

Lost & Found: New Harvest, Owen Gottlieb, Ian Schreiber

Presentations and other scholarship

Lost & Found is a strategy card-to-mobile game series that teaches medieval religious legal systems with attention to period accuracy and cultural and historical context.

Set in Fustat (Old Cairo) in the 12th century, a great crossroads of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. The Lost & Found games project seeks to expand the discourse around religious legal systems, to enrich public conversations in a variety of communities, and to promote greater understanding of the religious traditions that build the fabric of the United States. Comparative religious literacy can build bridges between and within communities and prepare learners to be responsible citizens …

Against The Eyes Of God And Man: The Suicide And Alcohol Intoxication Deaths Of Enslaved People In Alexandria And Henrico County, Virginia, 1805-1829, Peighton L. Young

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to provide a compressive examination of suicide and self-destructive behaviors within specific enslaved populations in early republic Virginia localities. I use coroners’ inquests as the primary means for identifying notable causes of death and potential behavioral patterns amongst the enslaved people presented in this study. I focused my investigation on two causes of death, demographics, and localities respectively: the drowning suicides committed by enslaved women along the Potomac River waterfront in Alexandria between 1807 and 1824 and the alcohol intoxication-related deaths of enslaved men in Henrico County between 1805 and 1829. Stepping away from …

Destroying Churches By Performing Knowledge: Ibn Al-RifʿA’S Kitāb Al-Nafā’Is Fī Adillat Hadm Al-Kanā’Is (700/1301) And The Social Negotiation Of Legal Authority, Gowaart Van Den Bossche

Faculty & Staff Publications

In 700/1301 the Cairene scholar Najm al-Dīn Ibn al-Rifʿa wrote a short juridical treatise entitled Kitāb al-nafāʾis fī adillat hadm al-kanāʾis in which he argued for the destruction of all churches and synagogues in Cairo. Some chroniclers report that this text was used to legitimise popular attacks on and the destruction of churches, but shortly thereafter, Ibn al-Rifʿa’s opinion was declared invalid by a council of prominent jurists. In addition to its juridical arguments for church destruction, several statements found in the treatise suggest that it was meant to function as a challenge to the author’s peers. I argue that …

“I Do Not Feel I Am A Piece Of Property To Be Bought And Sold Irrespective Of My Wishes:” Athlete Activism And The Sociocultural Impact Of Curt Flood’S Lawsuit Against Major League Baseball, Luka Green

Pomona Senior Theses

In January 1970, St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Curt Flood filed a suit against MLB Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, protesting the Reserve Clause in Major League Baseball that did not allow players the right to negotiate contract terms with any team but their current one. In doing so, he cemented his status as a divisive figure in baseball, the media, and with the general public. One of the primary reasons for such an extreme reaction was Flood’s rhetoric surrounding the case, as he repeatedly invoked slavery and other forms of peonage when describing the working conditions of professional baseball players. This sparked …

Equity In American And Jewish Law, Itzchak E. Kornfeld , Ph.D.

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

One Man And One Wife? The Legal History Of Marriage In The Culture And Courts Of America, Tyler Speer

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

For my honors thesis I will be writing on the legality and shifting attitudes of marriage throughout United States history. This thesis will explore three Supreme Court cases: Davis v. Beason (1890), Loving v. Virginia (1967), and Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), which explores polygamous, interracial, and homosexual marriages respectively. The full name of my thesis is "One Man and One Wife? The Legal History of Marriage in the Culture and Courts of America." The thesis will be upwards of fourty pages in length and will examine marriage from both historical and legal lenses and will be conducted through the History …

Acts Of Meaning, Resource Diagrams, And Essential Learning Behaviors: The Design Evolution Of Lost & Found, Owen Gottlieb, Ian Schreiber

Articles

Lost & Found is a tabletop-to-mobile game series designed for teaching medieval religious legal systems. The long-term goals of the project are to change the discourse around religious laws, such as foregrounding the prosocial aspects of religious law such as collaboration, cooperation, and communal sustainability. This design case focuses on the evolution of the design of the mechanics and core systems in the first two tabletop games in the series, informed by over three and a half years’ worth of design notes, playable prototypes, outside design consultations, internal design reviews, playtests, and interviews.

Film Review: The Trial Of Ratko Mladić, Iva Vukušić

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

No abstract provided.

Saving Adele: A History Of The Portrait Of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, Ariel A. Furman

Quest

Individual Research Project

Research in progress for HIST 1302: United States History II

Faculty Mentor: Kyle Wilkison, Ph.D.

Nothing ruins an enriching intellectual experience quite like having it assigned. Consequently, Honors History 1302 students began by identifying their own passions and interests. They then chose topics of immediate and abiding personal interest and produced research projects that reflected that energy and commitment. Their research probed a marvelous variety of historical topics from culture, medicine, science, politics, and economics. They researched and wrote about anti-fascist American comic books during World War II, disturbing historic treatments for the mentally ill, advances in …

The Crucible Of History:How Apology And Reconciliation Created Modern Conceptions Of The Salem Witch Trials, Heaven Umbrell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

For centuries, historians, authors, and amateur enthusiasts alike have been mesmerized by the Salem witch trials. Most of the literature focuses on the trials themselves and takes one of three approaches: anthropological; sociological; or conspiratorial. Recently Gretchen Adams, professor of history at Texas Tech University, approached the trials differently, focusing on memory. She narrowed on how the “specters of Salem” loomed over American cultural and public memory. Apart from Adams, little scholarly inquiry has focused on the aftermath of the trials, especially how it affected the people directly involved. This thesis will expand the historiography of the Salem witch hunt …

Making Discrimination Legal: A Comparison Of The Penal Laws In Ireland And The Nuremberg Laws And Other Laws In Nazi Germany, Gage Overton

Honors College Theses

The Penal Laws and the Nuremberg Laws were sets of legal codes which stripped away basic rights and civil liberties from Irish Catholics in the seventeenth and eighteenth century and German Jews in the 1930s and 1940s respectively. My research into these laws has allowed me to discover that the methods used by the English Crown and the Nazi German state to separate the groups targeted by their laws, as well as the circumstances which led to their implementation, were eerily similar, nearly identical. Besides this, they ultimately used this strategy as a way to justify the elimination of the …

Divorce And Family Life In Nineteenth-Century Vanderburgh County, Megan Owens

Grand Valley Journal of History

In the nineteenth century, private family life was meant to mimic the ideal republican society, providing the necessary foundation for future patriotic citizens. When families failed to adhere to the idealistic notions of the private sphere and descended into conflict or divorce, however, the very foundation of American society was in danger. An analysis of divorce and family disputes in local contexts like Vanderburgh County can provide a window into the realities of private conflict within American families, especially in comparison to wider national trends.

This paper uses a small sample of divorce records from Vanderburgh County in Indiana to …

Dorothy R. Crockett Classroom Dedication September 10, 2019, Roger Williams University School Of Law, Lorraine Lalli, Bre'anna Metts-Nixon, Michael M. Bowden

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Royalist Propaganda: Fabrication Of Magna Farta, Daniel R. Palthe

The Hilltop Review

This paper examines the perception and usage of Magna Carta in interregnum England. The central question is whether or not Oliver Cromwell ever referred to this royal document as the "Magna Farta." While one of the most common posthumous charges against him was a disdain for Magna Carta and English rights, accounts of his calling it a "Magna Farta" are questionable. The ways in which the Magna Carta was actually used under Cromwell rather seems to indicate a different opinion. Essentially, this paper compares royalist propaganda with the Commonwealth's accounts.

Time Traveling With Timelines: Web Apps For Storytelling In Libraries, Sharon Bradley, Rachel S. Evans

Articles, Chapters and Online Publications

From online embeds to interactive displays, timelines can serve many purposes and tell powerful stories. At the University of Georgia’s Law Library we have teamed up with faculty and staff to bring history to life, engage students, and preserve scholarly and institutional milestones. Through trial and error we have found a variety of tools for creating timelines digitally. In this article we share our four favorite web-based applications for creating timelines including Tiki-Toki, TimeToast, Prezi and Piktochart.

Complicated Lives: Free Blacks In Virginia, 1619-1865, Sherri L. Burr

Faculty Book Display Case

Would the United States have developed differently if Virginia had not passed a law in 1670 proclaiming all subsequently arriving Africans as servants for life, or slaves? What if the state had not stripped all Free Blacks and Indians of voting rights in 1723, or outlawed interracial sex for 337 years?

Complicated Lives upends the pervasive belief that all Africans landing on the shores of Virginia beginning in late August 1619, became slaves. In reality, many of these kidnap victims received the status of indentured servants. Indeed, hundreds of thousands of free African Americans in the South and North owned …

Cuckoldry And The “Gone For A Soldier” Narrative: Infidelity And Performance Among Eighteenth-Century English Plebeians, Elias Hubbard

Lawrence University Honors Projects

This project addresses existing historical arguments about the role of performance in eighteenth-century English plebeian infidelity cases, identifying some of the cultural scripts available to married men and women from popular texts in order to better understand cases of infidelity in contemporary plebeian marriages. The thesis seeks to clarify the effect of infidelity on a plebeian individual’s social standing and relationships, and to draw conclusions about the nature of plebeian infidelity, marriage, and gender in England through the long eighteenth century.

While examining contemporary public texts of cuckoldry, I address how homosocial behavior appears in narratives of cuckoldry, how the …

Herman L. Midlo: Social Ally In Louisiana Religious Civil Rights, Kenneth William-Moran Taylor

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The study of social allies in the field of American Civil Rights and Liberties History is largely an underappreciated aspect of this historical era. This work argues that social allies and their stories are worthwhile histories that are beneficial to the study of American Civil Rights and Liberties using Louisiana lawyer Herman Lazard Midlo as a case study. Midlo worked as a Louisiana lawyer from the 1930s to 1960s and fought tirelessly for the religious liberties of the Jehovah’s Witness community in the state. His story shows how beneficial and consequential the actions of social allies have had and can …

The History Of Lizzie Borden: Burying The Axe, Christian Ford

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

In 1892, a wealthy Massachusetts couple, Andrew and Abby Borden, were hacked to death during broad daylight in the comfort of their own home. A few weeks later Lizzie Borden, Andrew’s daughter from his first marriage, was arrested for double homicide. Newspapers across the country took hold of the story from the very first day; a wealthy, white, woman being accused of murder was no ordinary affair. For the next year, the nation was gripped to the news as the case revealed an everlasting list of strange characters and showed the dark underbelly of the small industrial city of Fall …

The United States' Relationship With The Insanity Defense Before And After United States V. Hinckley, Natalie R. Peterman

Young Historians Conference

The United States legal system has had a fluctuating relationship with the insanity defense for decades, and the trial of United States v. Hinckley was a critical milestone for this development. Before John Hinckley, Jr. attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan in 1981 and the jury of his trial found him not guilty, American society generally supported the insanity defense, but both the public and the government were outraged after Hinckley’s verdict. This outrage and the subsequent political backlash against the insanity defense were motivated by progress in the area of mental illness treatment in the United States. In the …