Call for papers: The 6th annual Diversity, Dilemmas and Discoveries Conference

Moments of Rupture Online 20-21 November 2025

Some legal and social changes are so profound that they create what seem to be moments of rupture: breaks between the ‘before’ and ‘after’. These moments can take many forms including new laws, new civil codes, court judgments and new organisations. But are these events really ruptures? If so, how was such significant change achieved? If not, how was continuity maintained?

For example, this year marks the centenary of the Law of Property Act 1925, the 140th anniversary of the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 1885, the 80th anniversary of the signing of the UN Charter, and the 60th anniversary of the Race Relations Act 1965, 35 years since Lloyds Bank v Rosset (the leading authority on rights of unmarried partners in the family home in England and Wales), while the 220th anniversary of the Code Napoleon has just passed. All were implicated in significant socio-legal change.

This free, online event on Thursday 20th and Friday 21st November 2025, is hosted by the Open University Law School legal histories research cluster. The conference invites papers discussing the role of ruptures in the way we interpret legal history and the way that legal history itself is re-moulded.

Papers addressing the subject from any legal-historical angle and on international, national or local planes are welcome, including but not limited to: