Re-Integrating Spaces at Savannah Law School

Next Friday and Saturday Savannah Law School will host a symposium on progressive property that celebrates the opening of their new building -- the renovated Candler Hospital, which dates back to 1819.  They're calling it "Re-Integrating Spaces."  Professor Marc Roark and the editors of the Savannah Law Review have put together a great symposium.  The panel topics are:

Place, Space, and Meaning Within the Law
Examining the role of physical space in shaping the societal sense of the meaning that property holds and the laws that govern property.

Historical Perspectives in Modern Context
Discussing how historical perspectives and preservation law influence the use and meaning of property in a modern context.

The Impact of Property Rights on Civil Rights
Exploring the influence of physical space on the experience of race, class, gender, and sexuality groups.

Property Transformation and Repurposing
Exploring the changing and competing uses of physical space and how these uses impact societal development and influence the law.

The speakers are: Anthony Baker (Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School); Stephen Clowney (University of Arkansas College of Law); Lia Epperson (American University Washington College of Law); Elizabeth Glazer (Hostra University Law School); Jamila Jefferson-Jones (Barry University School of Law); Adam G. Kirk, Esq.(HunterMaclean); Kali Murray (Marquette University Law School); Connie Pinkerton (Savannah College of Art and Design); Marc Poirier (Seton Hall School of Law); Amanda Reid (Florida Coastal School of Law); Marc Roark(Savannah Law School); Caprice Roberts (Savannah Law School); Jeffery Schmitt (Florida Coastal School of Law) and me.

I'm super excited about the conversation.  I'm going to talk about just how much property law has changed over the nearly two centuries since the Candler Hospital was built.  The building's lived through the eras of Native removal, slavery, and Jim Crow and now it's a place for learning law.  I going to turn from the building's history and the traditional concept of property to focus on some of the progressive possibilities of property -- from the anti-feudal tradition that is deeply rooted in American law (and some of its contemporary elements, such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Fair Housing Act, and the rebalancing of rights between landlords and tenants by statute) to common law doctrines that help non-owners, such as the right to trespass on unfenced (and unmarked) land, easements by implication and prescription, implied servitudes, and doctrines that help free owners from control by their neighbors, such as restrictions on burdensome servitudes.

The Savannah Morning News has a nice article about the conference here.  I am sure the conversation will be great and I hope to return with some more photos of Savannah.

Update As of August 2015: Here is my paper, Re-integrating Spaces: The Possibilities of Common Law Property.