Professor James Whitman Elected International Fellow of the British Academy

James Q. Whitman ’88, Ford Foundation Professor of Comparative and Foreign Law, has been elected as an International Fellow of the British Academy.

Whitman is one of 32 international fellows elected to the British Academy this year, in addition to 58 fellows from universities across the United Kingdom and two honorary fellows, as announced by the academy on July 17. The British Academy is the United Kingdom’s national academy for the humanities and social sciences. Whitman was elected in recognition of his contributions to the fields of legal history and comparative law.

“I am delighted to welcome our newest fellows to the British Academy. Each has made an outstanding contribution to their field, and together they reflect the remarkable breadth and depth of scholarship across our discipline,” said Professor Susan J. Smith, president of the British Academy. “At a time when society is grappling with radical uncertainty in the face of technological, economic, and environmental change, the humanities and social sciences have never been more important.”

Whitman’s most recent book, “From Masters of Slaves to Lords of Lands: The Transformation of Ownership in the Western World,” is a history of the concept of ownership in the Roman Legal Tradition. His other books on legal history include “Hitler’s American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law” (2017), “The Origins of Reasonable Doubt: Theological Roots of the Criminal Trial” (2008) and “Harsh Justice: Criminal Punishment and the Widening Divide Between America and Europe” (2003). Whitman has also published numerous articles internationally and across disciplines. 

Whitman has also been elected as a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow (2010–2011), a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and an honorary fellow of the American Society of Legal History.