Articles, Essays and Reviews
Pearson v. Pearson: A Story of Slavery, Marriage, and the West, Told in Black and White
Professor Jason Gillmer This Article recreates the story of Richard and Laura Pearson to offer an intimate glimpse into the complexities of interracial relationships during slavery and the decades that followed. It is built out of the trial transcripts—which until now have remained hidden for 150 years—and relies heavily on the actual words of the…
They Were Free: The Clear Error at the Core of Prigg v. Pennsylvania
William Bock IV The archives of the Historical Society of Harford County in Maryland contain the records of the 1837 freedom trial of Margaret Morgan, the central character in Prigg v. Pennsylvania. This paper argues that based on the testimony presented by Morgan during her 1837 freedom trial in Harford County, even under the laws…
Aspiring to State Authority: The Autonomy of Arbitration Institutions in China
By Kai-Shen Huang Drawing on fourteen months of ethnographic fieldwork, this article examines the widespread process of officialization in China’s arbitration institutions, aiming to understand the motivations for this approach that diverges from market norms. The article highlights the negotiation between individual autonomy and state guardianship as a crucial feature of Chinese subjecthood that shapes…
Review of Nausica Palazzo and Jeffery A. Redding’s Queer and Religious Alliances in Family Law, Politics, and Beyond
Review by Professor Jeremiah Ho Cultural and politically-salient narratives often proceed on mainstream assumptions while also promising to represent universal truths about our collective societal experiences. The frequent danger in fixing our mindsets too firmly onto such narratives is our consequential inabilities to detect situational realities that might engender grander societal benefits… (Read On Below).
