19thC Workshop “Family/Law”

 

From: Thursday, October 01, 2015, 01:00pm

To: Friday, October 02, 2015, 02:30pm

Recent work in legal history and criticism designates the nineteenth century as a pivotal moment in the consolidation of “family law” as a distinct juridical domain in the West. Ubiquitous as a legal category, family law was also highly particularized because it was assumed to be culturally and nationally distinct. It was cast as different from market law, which was assumed to operate everywhere in the same way. Family law thus presumed cultural/national/religious/racial difference as a contrast and complement to the universality of market logics and laws. And yet the historical and cultural processes that contributed to this bifurcated development—colonial expansion and national consolidation; migration and missionary work; the abolition of slavery and the alienation of labor; advances in transportation and communication technologies—brought family laws into regular conflict with each other and with the presumptive universality of the market. The foundations and meanings of “family” and “law” were hence as much sites of contestation as of political, economic, and cultural legitimation. 

 Essays will be circulated in advance to all participants; the workshop format will permit the focused discussion of these essays across two days of convivial conversation. Workshop participants will include nineteenth-century scholars from various fields—history, anthropology, law, the history of philosophy, the literary and graphic arts, among others—at Rutgers and in the greater NY/NJ area. 

Admission is free but seating is limited.  Please RVSP to attend the workshop:   https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1LTV4X8OI35K0CK6Kw-aKK--Ip1PqkwnF9mh8B4tI6Z4/viewform?usp=send_form

Location

Murray Hall
510 George Street
New Brunswick, NJ, 08901

Contact 

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Events sponsored by the Center for Cultural Analysis are free and open to the public, unless specifically noted