Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Mitra Sharafi @mitrasharafi.bsky.social · 13d

For legal historians: did you publish a book recently that won't be represented at the Detroit ASLH conference book sale in Nov.2025? You should bring a copy for this new initiative to showcase your work! Much needed as only a few publishers are represented at the book sale: aslh.net/new-works-in...

New Works in Legal History: Displays at the Detroit Meeting | American Society for Legal History

New Works in Legal History: Many legal historians publish books with presses that are not represented at the conference book sale. In recognition of this fact, the ASLH will host a table to showcase t...

aslh.net

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Reposted by Mitra Sharafi

Dr. Felicia Kornbluh @vtfeminist.bsky.social · 20d

@legalhistoryblog.bsky.social @kmtani.bsky.social @grisinger.bsky.social @mitrasharafi.bsky.social @awcohen.bsky.social @marydudziak.bsky.social @serenamayeri.bsky.social Last call! Extended deadline from ASLH Projects & Proposals for legal history. Due 9/19 - see ASLH website for details.

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Mitra Sharafi @mitrasharafi.bsky.social · 23d

Just learned that UW-Madison has a historical cookbook collection (with a wobbly center of jello recipes): onwisconsin.uwalumni.com/now-were-coo...

Now We’re Cookin’ | On Wisconsin

For 60 years, UW’s Steenbock Library has been growing its cookbook collection.

onwisconsin.uwalumni.com

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Mitra Sharafi @mitrasharafi.bsky.social · 23d

Fantastic. Thank you!!

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Mitra Sharafi @mitrasharafi.bsky.social · 23d

Wonderful--thanks!

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Mitra Sharafi @mitrasharafi.bsky.social · 23d

Thank you!

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Mitra Sharafi @mitrasharafi.bsky.social · 28d

Can anyone recommend good memoirs set in Ireland?

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Mitra Sharafi @mitrasharafi.bsky.social · Sep 9

Calling all legal historians! The ASLH Projects and Proposals funding application deadline has been extended--from Sept.1 to Sept.18, 2025. If you're looking for funding for a legal history workshop or other initiative (the Call is very broad), you should apply: aslh.net/projects-pro...

Projects & Proposals Funding Deadline Extended | American Society for Legal History

The ASLH is pleased to announce the extension of the deadline for Projects and Proposals funding until 9/18. The goal of P&P is the "funding of new initiatives in the study, presentation, and producti...

aslh.net

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Reposted by Mitra Sharafi

kalramnath @kalramnath.bsky.social · Aug 13

Boats in a Storm gets an India edition with Westland Books @westlandbooks.bsky.social!

Releasing on 18 August.

Book cover of Boats in a Storm in blue, lavender and white with the outline of India's Madras High Court in the background.

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Mitra Sharafi @mitrasharafi.bsky.social · Sep 7

Very excited that the Asian Legal History Association will be formally launched at 2 events in March 2026--at Chinese University of Hong Kong (March 17-18, 2026) + Oxford (March 23)! Here's the Call for Papers for "Legal History in Asia and Beyond" (due Oct31): www.law.cuhk.edu.hk/app/events/c...

Call for Papers – Legal History in Asia and Beyond: Lessons from the Past for the Present - The Chinese University of Hong Kong

The Transnational Legal History Group, part of the Centre for Comparative and Transnational Law within the Faculty of Law at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Oxford Programme in Asian Laws of the Faculty Read more…

www.law.cuhk.edu.hk

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Mitra Sharafi @mitrasharafi.bsky.social · Sep 3

Fascinating article from the Princeton alumni magazine: paw.princeton.edu/article/max-...

‘He did not want me growing up in a country run by gangsters’

Why a father in Nazi Germany sent his son to Princeton

paw.princeton.edu

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Mitra Sharafi @mitrasharafi.bsky.social · Aug 31

And on the theme of positive stories in the news, here is one of my all-time favorites--a NYT story from over a decade ago on a long kidney donation chain within the US: www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/h...

60 Lives, 30 Kidneys, All Linked (Published 2012)

www.nytimes.com

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Mitra Sharafi @mitrasharafi.bsky.social · Aug 31

Just discovered The Guardian's "Kindness of Strangers" series: www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle... What a ray of light in the middle of reading the news, which these days is so full of cruelty & destruction. These stories are moving, funny, kind, & hopeful. I just read them all in one go!

Kindness of strangers | The Guardian

<p>Sometimes a random gesture or act of generosity can change the way you think about your day – or your life</p>

www.theguardian.com

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Mitra Sharafi @mitrasharafi.bsky.social · Aug 31

Yes it is! A big theme in my Contracts I course starting this coming week

Mitra Sharafi @mitrasharafi.bsky.social · Aug 31

I passed Arundhati Roy once in the street in Delhi, but was so flustered and starstruck that I couldn't even manage a "big fan!"

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Mitra Sharafi @mitrasharafi.bsky.social · Aug 30

Wow--incredible interview with Arundhati Roy on her mother, rising authoritarianism in India and the US, and other things: www.nytimes.com/2025/08/30/m...

Arundhati Roy on How to Survive in a ‘Culture of Fear’

www.nytimes.com

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Reposted by Mitra Sharafi

Anise K. Strong @anisekstrong.bsky.social · Aug 27

This was indeed one of my reactions. Especially for those of us teaching at non-elite universities, there has always been the reassurance that it didn't matter if we never taught Akkadian or Elamite b/c someone really interested could always go to Chicago or Harvard or Oxford to learn those. Now?

Dr. Nick Posegay @nposegay.bsky.social · Aug 27

There will be many casualties from UChicago ending ('pausing') PhD admissions in Humantities, but one which I am keenly aware of: this is close to a death sentence for teaching cuneiform in the United States (esp. Sumerian, Hittite, Elamite, Eblaite, Luwian) and it will affect the whole world.

Annette Yoshiko Reed @annetteyreed.bsky.social · Aug 27

“Chicago has long helped to keep alive tiny fields & esoteric areas of humanistic study... Without the univ’s support, & the continued training of grad students who can keep these bodies of kn going, entire spheres of human learning might eventually blink out.” www.theatlantic.com/culture/arch...

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Mitra Sharafi @mitrasharafi.bsky.social · Aug 26

"Contrary to much popular opinion, college is not in the information transfer business; we are in the identity formation business." Insightful NYT piece on AI and pedagogy that looks to medieval history for useful ideas: www.nytimes.com/2025/08/26/o...

Opinion | Students Hate Them. Universities Need Them. The Only Real Solution to the A.I. Cheating Crisis.

www.nytimes.com

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Mitra Sharafi @mitrasharafi.bsky.social · Aug 24

Cannot wait to read the rest of Arundhati Roy's memoir, which includes a grim Imperial Entomologist grandfather: www.theguardian.com/books/2025/a...

Arundhati Roy on her fugitive childhood: ‘My knees were full of scars and cuts – a sign of my wild, imperfect, fatherless life’

When war broke out between India and China, the author and her brother were taken by their mother on a chaotic journey from hill station squat to an eccentric household in Kerala. Would they ever find...

www.theguardian.com

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Mitra Sharafi @mitrasharafi.bsky.social · Aug 23

A highlight of my recent trip to Japan for the 5th Asian Legal History Conference was discovering the teamLab digital art museums in Tokyo: #teamlabborderless #teamlabplanets. Wondrous! And they are in other places,too (incl. Singapore Macau Abu Dhabi Hamburg). The future of museums: www.teamlab.art

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Reposted by Mitra Sharafi

Ole Birk Laursen @olebirklaursen.bsky.social · Nov 10

I'm a historian of anticolonialism and anarchism in the 20C. My first book, 'Anarchy or Chaos', is a biography of India's foremost anarchist activist M.P.T. Acharya, and I am currently writing a book on the Indian revolutionary movement in Europe, 1905-1918. www.hurstpublishers.com/book/anarchy...

Anarchy or Chaos | Hurst Publishers

The first biography of an extraordinary political thinker at the heart of India's struggles against colonial and domestic oppression.

www.hurstpublishers.com

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Reposted by Mitra Sharafi

Chris @chrismroberts.bsky.social · Aug 20

A good conference for photos!

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Mitra Sharafi @mitrasharafi.bsky.social · Aug 19

Reporting back from another fantastic Asian Legal History Conference! This was the 5th--in Kyoto, Japan @doshishauniversity.bsky.social. Thanks & congrats to @chrismroberts.bsky.social, Anselmo Reyes, & everyone else who made it happen. Keynotes & vegan dinner @ shrine were especially memorable.

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Mitra Sharafi @mitrasharafi.bsky.social · Aug 17

I did an interview with Kunal Ambasta on the history of forensic science and my forthcoming book (coming out with @cornellupress.bsky.social in 2026). Now up on the National Law School of India University's Scholars in Conversation series: www.nls.ac.in/blog/scholar...

Scholars in Conversation l Professor Mitra Sharafi with Assistant Professor Kunal Ambasta - National Law School of India University

The ‘Scholars in Conversation’ series features interviews with academics across diverse disciplines and geographies. Anchored by NLSIU faculty members, these conversations explore the work of leading voices in their fields in order to bring academic...

www.nls.ac.in

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Mitra Sharafi @mitrasharafi.bsky.social · Jul 26

Wow. Cambridge University Press has been sending me an agreement to let AI metabolize the 2014 book I published with them. I haven't signed because I'm uneasy and want to wait and see. But JHUP is a press that is flipping the default--authors apparently give permission unless they opt out.

Kevin Gannon (now a Moo Deng fan account) @thetattooedprof.bsky.social · Jul 26

Friends who've published with Hopkins, check out the below if you weren't already aware:

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · Jul 26

“Authors have until the end of August to opt out of the licensing agreement. If they do not, their work will be used to help train AI models.”