Simon Stern
@simon8.bsky.social
2.5K followers 1.6K following 140 posts
Law & Literature, legal history, criminal law, IP, 18c/19C British literature || U of Toronto Law & English || OUP Law & Lit series http://tinyurl.com/y7fhvh36 || Oxford Hbk of Law & Humanities http://tinyurl.com/y95rdzl3 || SSRN https://tinyurl.com/SSRNss
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not to mention the cost of curtilage!
"Something painful encloses something joyful and now I am enclosing that painful thing as a way to assert my joy." -- Robert Gluck, "Denny Smith"
Reposted by Simon Stern
matthewlevay.bsky.social
Absolutely thrilled with the cover @univnebpress.bsky.social has designed for my book, The New Old Style: Anachronism in Contemporary Comics (coming August ‘26)! And special thanks to the wonderful and generous Cole Closser for allowing me to use their art.
Cover of a book titled The New Old Style: Anachronism in Contemporary Comics, by Matthew Levay. The cover features three vertically-arranged panels. The middle features the book’s title against a black background, while the top and bottom feature colorful drawings of a boy with white circles for eyes, done in a style clearly reminiscent of 1920s and 1930s-era newspaper comics and designed to appear as if they are printed on old newsprint.
By implication he responds to her statement that she has acted "to the best of [her] ability" but it's interesting that the judge doesn't comment more directly on that part. That is to say -- maybe she did act to the best of her ability, and if so, what does that say about her ability?
"[I]t strains credulity to think the RIF was 'uncertain[]' or 'a mere possibility' as the defendants repeatedly represented to this Court. ... The defendants' obfuscation ... has wasted precious judicial time and would readily support contempt proceedings."
shimmer.bsky.social
Reading this today, my second by Sully both thanks to @neglectedbooks.com. It’s inexplicable to me that the verve for republishing mid century novelists like Comyns et al hasn’t found its way to Sully yet.
neglectedbooks.com
Kathleen Sully uses death as punctuation in A Man Talking to Seagulls (1959). The sixth of her novels that I read, it led me to speculate that two themes dominate her work: life is chaotic and rarely comprehensible; and death is inevitable and never more than a breath away.

neglectedbooks.com/?...
Reposted by Simon Stern
princetonupress.bsky.social
@benjaminnathans.bsky.social latest book To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause has been #shortlisted for The 2025 Cundill History Prize. Listen to his interview on @historyextra.bsky.social with Danny Bird here: buff.ly/FgwuOEL
Honestly, it is so hilariously inept that it reads as satire.
Reposted by Simon Stern
mfroomkin.bsky.social
In "Falling Far and Fast," Yale Law Dean Robert Post, a leading First Amendment Scholar, writes that "for the first time, I have become frightened that freedom of speech in America might actually be endangered." verfassungsblog.de/turn-against...
I have been studying and teaching First Amendment law for more than forty years, and in all that time I have been more or less confident that basic minima of freedom of speech would remain unscathed in the United States. It was the one constitutional right that inspired widespread allegiance and agreement. But this week, for the first time, I have become frightened that freedom of speech in America might actually be endangered. Authoritarianism, with its trademark suppression of free political discussion, looms on our horizon.

Wheel of power
Since the 1930s, when the Supreme Court first began to protect First Amendment rights, it has safeguarded freedom of speech because “the maintenance of the opportunity for free political discussion to the end that government may be responsive to the will of the people and that changes may be obtained by lawful means, an opportunity essential to the security of the Republic, is a fundamental principle of our constitutional system.” For all its many failings and lapses, the American Court has largely defended the First Amendment “as the guardian of our democracy,” seeking to construct a system in which “authority . . . is to be controlled by public opinion, not public opin­ion by authority.”

The First Amendment embodies the basic Aristotelian principle of democracy: citizens must agree to take turns ruling and being ruled. Those out of power can make their case in the public sphere to alter public opinion and take control of government in the next election. Free speech ensures that those who are ruled will have the opportunity to persuade others to invest them with the authority to rule in the future. Free speech turns the wheel of power. To suppress speech is to freeze that wheel. It is to choke off pathways of change and hence, as Louis Brandeis pointed out long ago, “to discourage thought, hope and imagination” by stoking the “hate” of the repressed, which constitutes a “menace” to “stable government.” Full text at https://verfassungsblog.de/turn-against-free-speech-america/
Reposted by Simon Stern
gregdember.bsky.social
My book, _Say Hello to Metamodernism!_ has been reviewed in the journal _English Studies_, which I understand is a rather prestigious European journal. It's overall a positive review, with a few gentle critiques, which I like because it makes it feel more real.
www.tandfonline.com/eprint/FTKAC...
Say Hello to Metamodernism!: Understanding Today’s Culture of Ironesty, Felt Experience, and Emphatic Reflexivity
Published in English Studies (Ahead of Print, 2025)
www.tandfonline.com
do you even have to do that, in 1967? I mean, I see that it's a good idea, but I imagine many don't see the need for it.
Reposted by Simon Stern
frankcogliano.bsky.social
Job opportunity for an historian at Monticello. This is the 4th time they've tried to fill the role this year (they seem to have given up trying to find a senior person and have dropped the PhD requirement). DM me if you want to know what it's like to work there.

www.monticello.org/thomas-jeffe...
Paycor Job Openings
at Monticello
www.monticello.org
Beth Boyens “Liable to the Vagrant Act”: Melancholic Vagrancy in Lydia Maria Child’s Hobomok and Letters from New York: in ESQ: muse.jhu.edu/pub/84/artic... "Child aligns the female writer with the prostitute, female loiterer, and wanderer at whom the Vagrant Act was directed" @lpcprof.bsky.social
Project MUSE - “Liable to the Vagrant Act”: Melancholic Vagrancy in Lydia Maria Child’s <i>Hobomok</i> and <i>Letters from New York</i>
muse.jhu.edu
Reposted by Simon Stern
oliviaformby.bsky.social
📣Call for Papers 📣

I am delighted to announce that 'Speech/less in the Early Modern World' will be held 23 April 2026 at Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge.

Please share far and wide and do consider submitting a proposal! 🙊

Link to PDF version: bit.ly/4lZz80R
could it be the 2006 "80th anniversary" ed.? reviews of that ed. quote this phrase as part of the publisher's billing
The Case of the blubbery blueberry
Did they at least name the hotel Paradise?
Reposted by Simon Stern
legalhistoryblog.bsky.social
Law and History Review: A Call for an Editor
[We have the following announcement from the Publications Committee of the American Society for Legal History.  DRE]  After eight years of exceptional service, Gautham Rao is stepping down as Editor-in-Chief of the Law & History Review, which is sponsored by the American Society for Legal History and published by Cambridge University Press.  Founded in 1983 and published quarterly, LHR is the top journal in the field of legal history. The ASLH Publications Committee invites applications for the position. Applicants should be members of the American Society for Legal History who are accomplished legal historians, have the intellectual range to work with manuscripts from different historical periods and geographic regions, are conversant with both law and history, and welcome the opportunity to identify and promote the best scholarship in the field.  They should be prepared to request release time and other departmental or institutional support. The editor’s responsibilities include soliciting manuscripts in all fields of legal history, shepherding submitted manuscripts through the peer review and editorial processes, working with the journal’s print and electronic publisher Cambridge University Press, and maintaining collaborative relationships with the journal’s Associate Editors, its Editorial Board and the ASLH Board of Directors. Production management is the responsibility of Cambridge University Press. Appointment is for an initial five-year term.   Interested scholars should send an electronic version of their current c.v. and a statement of what they would like to accomplish as editor of the journal by September 15, 2025, to the Chairs of the Publications Committee: Daniel Ernst ([email protected]) and Catherine Fisk ([email protected]).  Inquiries about the position should be directed to the same email addresses or by phone to Daniel Ernst at 240.506.2220.
dlvr.it