Katherine Unterman Noon Lunch Workshop and 4 pm Afternoon Talk
Katherine Unterman Noon Lunch Workshop and 4 pm Afternoon Talk
Please join us on Monday, September 29th for a lunch workshop and afternoon talk with Professor Katherine Unterman (Texas A&M University) as she presents her paper, "Detectives without Borders."
"Detectives without Borders"
In the late nineteenth century, the acceleration of international trade and transport made it easier than ever for criminal fugitives to escape from the United States. This paper uncovers the mechanics of international manhunts, finding that private detectives like the Pinkertons had wide latitude to cross borders, transgress lines of sovereignty, and use tactics like fraud and abduction to catch a fugitive for a client. Supporting their actions, the Supreme Court affirmed in 1886 that international kidnappings did not violate U.S. law. That precedent remains in place to this day, and has justified everything from the abduction of drug traffickers by the DEA to the post-9/11 practice of extraordinary rendition.
Katherine Unterman is an assistant professor of history at Texas A&M University. She received her Ph.D. from Yale and her Master's in Legal Studies from Stanford Law School. She has received fellowships from the American Historical Association and the Miller Center of Public Affairs, and in 2013 was a fellow at the Kluge Center in the Library of Congress. Her first book, Nowhere to Hide: International Fugitives and American Power, will be published by Harvard University Press in 2015.
For more on Professor Unterman and her work, please see http://history.tamu.edu/faculty/unterman.shtml.
Both events are free and open to the public. Please RSVP to millercenter@umd.edu for lunch. Light refreshments will also be served in the afternoon.
Lunch will be in Francis Scott Key Hall 2120 (The Merrill Room); 4 pm Lecture will be held in Taliaferro Hall 2110