Laura Culbertson Editor

Laura Culbertson (PhD Michigan, Near Eastern Studies) is a professor of Middle East Studies at American Public University. Her background is in Ancient Near Eastern history and archaeology, and her recent research interests include slavery and ancient law. On the topic of slavery, she edited Slaves and Households in the Near East and co-edited Society and the Individual in Mesopotamia, which includes a contribution Mesopotamian slavery. Other recent publications discuss legal pluralism and the social contexts of Mesopotamian law.

Susan Longfield Karr (Ph.D. University of Chicago, History): Longfield Karr’s teaching and research focus on state- and empire-state formation and the emergence of the so-called modern rule of law within communities (constitutions) and between them (international law) from the late medieval through the early modern period. Her work pays particular attention to the meaning and significance of legal vocabularies within cultural, political, and juridical frameworks that accompany the history and development of rights (customary, civic, and natural) in the context of state and empire formation in Italy, Germany, France, and England. Most recently, she published On Justice and Right: Jus gentium in Humanist Jurisprudence, wherein she explored the transformation of fundamental categories of Roman law such as ius and ius gentium by the fathers of legal humanism, Guillaume Budé, Ulrich Zasius, and Andrea Alciati (Brill, 2022). Dr. Longfield Karr is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Cincinnati.