Sunday, March 6, 2011
New Heights for ALPS!
Saturday was the second and final day of the 2nd Annual Meeting of the Association for Law, Property and Society at Georgetown. Last year's inaugural offered such terrific exchanges as to fully justify Matt's enthusiastic posts leading into this year's reprise. Comprising more than 120 participating presenters, the two dozen panels featured scholars engaged in projects in real property, land use, environmental law, property theory and intellectual property among others. Many past and present bloggers from Land Use Prof and Property Prof were in attendance. Robin Paul Malloy (Syracuse) and Michael Diamond (Georgetown) deserve our thanks for not only putting together another great event but also fostering the critical mass of leadership ALPS will need to continue to offer inclusive gatherings that promote the very best in engaged property thought.
This year, the work offered by scholars from non-U.S. institutions really made the conference for me. Even with the wide-ranging participation from domestic law schools, 20% of this year's presenters came from, among other countries, the U.K, Canada and Israel. I got a chance to hear great talks by Lorna Fox-O'Mahony (Durham) and recent Land Use Prof guest blogger Antonia Layard (Cardiff). I also was able to re-connect with Susan Bright (Oxford) and Nick Hopkins (Southampton), who have been writing about the same kind of perpetually affordable homeownership models that I have focused on in my own scholarship.
The highlight of the weekend for me was the amazing discussion of property theory as examined in Property: Values and Institutions, a brand new Oxford U. Press book by Hanoch Dagan (Tel Aviv). The panel featured terrific dialogue between the author and commentators Larissa Katz (Queens), Eduardo Peñalver (Cornell), Eric Claeys (George Mason) and Jed Purdy (Duke).
Next year at Georgetown again for ALPS 3.0. Keep checking our blog for updates on registration.
Jim K.
https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/land_use/2011/03/new-heights-for-alps.html