Welcome to the
Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities

View our current issues here

“Law feeds and is fed by the world around it. Fortunately, that world is at least as aptly described and understood by the humanities as by the social sciences. Hence, and also fortunately, it is impossible fully to understand law without a deep and sympathetic knowledge of the liberal arts.”

The Honorable Guido Calabresi,
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit; Sterling Professor and former Dean, Yale Law School

About Us

Since its inception in 1989, the Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities (YJLH) has become a premier forum for examining the intersection of law and the liberal arts. Grounded in the ever-deepening awareness that cutting-edge interdisciplinary exploration is crucial to a fuller understanding of both the law and the world at large, YJLH provides a unique intellectual arena to scholars of several disciplines.

YJLH is composed of students studying at Yale Law School as well as graduate students studying humanities-related disciplines through the other graduate programs at Yale University. We normally publish two issues in the year. This year, we will be publishing a symposium and a one-issue standard Volume in place of publishing a two-issue standard Volume.

Submissions to the Journal

Submissions for the Fall 2022 issue of Volume 34 are now closed. See the Submissions & Subscriptions page for more details.

Tech Law & the Humanities Symposium

October 28, 2022

Yale Law School

In collaboration with Yale's Justice Collaboratory, YJLH is hosting a one-day symposium to explore the causes and cures for online harms from a multidisciplinary perspective. Come join our conversation about misinformation, cyberbullying, polarization, civility, and voice with scholars steeped in everything from theology and sociology to history and engineering.

If you are interested in attending, either in person or via Zoom, please sign up via this registration link.

NEW! Credit Nation Symposium Issue

In September 2021, Yale Law School hosted a symposium in honor of Claire Priest's new book Credit Nation: Property Laws and Institutions in Early America. Comments from the symposium, along with two feature articles, are now available in a special issue published by the Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities.

Foreword (Taisu Zhang)

Confiscation Nation: Settler Postcolonialism and the Property Paradox (Daniel J. Hulsebosch)

Credit Nation and the Reconfiguration of Early American and Imperial History (Steve Pincus)

Commentary on Claire Priest's Credit Nation (Laura F. Edwards)

Property in Land in the Early United States (Robert C. Ellickson)

Property and Credit: A Legal and Economic History (Ron Harris)

A Glimpse of Early Modern Governance in Claire Priest’s Credit Nation (Carol M. Rose)

Rethinking Property Rights in the Light of Credit Nation (Naomi R. Lamoreaux)

Caribbean “Credit Nations”: Consignment Economies in the British West Indies (Eleanor Brown)

Eliding Original Understanding in Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid (Bethany R. Berger)