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Call for Papers: Geographies of Intellectual Property

By Lawrence Solum

International Society for the History and Theory of Intellectual Property
http://www.ishtip.org
Call for Papers
Second Annual ISHTIP Workshop

Geographies of Intellectual Property

American University, Washington, D.C.
24-26 September 2010

Following our first successful meeting in June 2009 at Bocconi University in Milan on "The Construction of Immateriality," the second ISHTIP workshop, to be held September 24-26, 2010 in Washington, D.C. will consider "Geographies of Intellectual Property." We are interested in

(i) the ways in which ideas, innovations, and creativity are "mapped" and thus transformed from actions, practices, and communications into property, and sovereignty over the mapped object(s) is attributed to particular individuals or creators;
(ii) those aspects of ideas and information that elude the capacity of intellectual property systems, because they are too slippery or mutable to be mapped (ideas as such, style, timbre, discoveries, mathematical theories, scenes à faire which resist the processes of "propertization"), or are regarded as incapable of ascription to particular individuals (genres, gossip, rumors, jokes, urban myths);
(iii) the ways that intellectual property laws (their historical precursors and social analogues) have understood or sought to influence the geographical movement of ideas and information (including the incentivization and restriction of the movement of texts, traders, machinery and trades through the grant of privileges, through criminal laws, and other arrangements);
(iv) the role of intellectual property laws (their historical precursors and social analogues) in channelling the movement of ideas, their modes of migration, and generative capacities of knowledge across conceptual spaces, through networks, via spillovers and the generation of clusters and hubs; the limitations of territorially-based rights in controlling the movement of information across peer to peer systems and through social networks;
(v) the relationship between intellectual property, authorship, invention, nationhood and empire; the role of intellectual property in reinforcing ideas of "place," through recognition of rights in "geographical indications" and denominations of origin.
(vi) the understanding of the many spatial dimensions of intellectual property, such as geographical and territorial restrictions, language barriers, and inter-linguistic relationships, the distinction between public and private places, as well as between virtual and physical space.

By focusing on the heterogeneous roots of our present intellectual property regime the workshop aims to foster richer contextualization of this regime than can be provided by legal history working alone. To this end it will assemble scholars from across the disciplines - from anthropology, economic and business history, the history of science, literary and cultural history, as well as from legal history and theory.

Up to ten papers/works in progress will be accepted; they will circulate in advance and will receive intensive discussion at the workshop. Case studies, close analyses of constellations of social and/or legal practices, and close readings of significant episodes in the history of information management are especially welcome. A maximum length of 9,000 words is recommended.

Participants who have already confirmed that they will attend include: Lionel Bently, Cambridge U; Mario Biagioli, Harvard U; Maurizio Borghi, Brunel U; Kathy Bowrey, U of New South Wales; Ronan Deazley, U of Glasgow; Christophe Geiger, U of Strasbourg; Johanna Gibson, Queen Mary U of London; Peter Jaszi, American U; Lilla Montagnani, Bocconi U; Martha Woodmansee, Case Western Reserve U

Important dates

Prospectus submission deadline: 5 June 2010
Notification of acceptance: 25 June 2010
Registration deadline (for all participants): 24 August 2010
Deadline for submission of papers: 24 August 2010
Workshop: 24-26 September 2010

Contacts
For information and program updates, see http://www.ishtip.org
Please address questions and submissions to: ishtip@case.edu
Submissions should include a prospectus of approximately 2 pages and a short (maximum 2-page) resumé

Full post as published by Legal Theory Blog on April 12, 2010 (boomark / email).