It is appropriate that the University of Wisconsin play host to this exceptional group, since Wisconsin's connection to the study of legal history runs deep. J. Willard Hurst (1910-1997), for whom the Institute is named, was a professor for 44 years at the University of Wisconsin Law School (1937-1980). Hurst was preeminent among legal historians and internationally recognized as the founder of modern American legal history. In fact, so influential was Professor Hurst, that the term ?Hurstian perspective? is used by legal historians today to describe the approach to history that emphasizes the interplay between the legal system, broadly construed, and the social, economic, and environmental conditions that surround it. Hurst stressed that law could not be studied as a system apart from the society that created it, and he brought the American legal experience into the mainstream of economic and social history. Professor Hurst is also widely credited with shaping Wisconsin's ?law and society? approach to legal scholarship and education: the premise that law must be studied in its social context.
The study of legal history continues to hold an important place at the University of Wisconsin Law School. The two legal historians on the Wisconsin Law Faculty -- Professor Arthur McEvoy (the J. Willard Hurst Professor of Law) and Professor Jane Larson -- teach several courses in legal history and are involved in ongoing research and writing. In addition, the Law School maintains a long-running fellowship program for post-doctoral students in history, many of them with joint degrees in law. The Hurst Summer Institute will be a biennial event sponsored by the Institute for Legal Studies at the University of Wisconsin Law School in conjunction with the American Society for Legal History (ASLH). At each meeting, the Institute will be organized and chaired by a well-known legal historian and will include two visiting senior scholars who will lead specialized sessions. This year's chair is Professor Lawrence Friedman, the Marion Rice Kirkwood Professor of Law at Stanford University School of Law. The two visiting senior scholars are Professor Linda K. Kerber, the May Brodbeck Professor in the Liberal Arts and Professor of History at the University of Iowa, and Professor Robert W. Gordon, the Fred A. Johnston Professor of Law and Professor of History at Yale Law School.
A committee appointed by the ASLH reviewed applications from beginning faculty members, doctoral students with completed or almost completed dissertations, and recent J.D. graduates and selected 12 junior scholars from around the world as Institute Fellows. These impressive Fellows will come to Madison for two weeks, beginning on June 10, to participate in seminars, meet other legal historians, and present their own work to the Institute.
The next Institute will be held in June 2003. Information and applications for the 2003 Hurst Summer Institute will be available from ASLH. For further information, check the ASLH Web site at http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~law/ .
Submitted by on June 13, 2001
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