Daniel LaChance
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dwlachance.bsky.social
Daniel LaChance
@dwlachance.bsky.social
Law & Humanities Professor in Emory University’s History Department. Ph.D. in American Studies (UMN). I write about crime and punishment in American Culture. Author: Executing Freedom (2016), Crimesploitation (2022). Website: https://tinyurl.com/rmhsv6fx
What a great day celebrating Austin Sarat’s FIFTY years of teaching at Amherst College.I got to speak on this panel in the morning and then again in the afternoon about how influential his scholarship and mentorship has been to me.
November 3, 2025 at 3:30 PM
Married!
October 20, 2025 at 5:31 PM
Cowardice.
September 3, 2025 at 8:10 PM
Summer reading
June 7, 2025 at 7:08 PM
Emory has “de-promoted” President Greg Fenves, removing him as president and creating a chancellorship position for him to occupy, presumably at a high salary, as budgets are being slashed 30% across all units and a pay and hiring freeze are in effect.

www.chronicle.com/article/emor...
May 30, 2025 at 3:37 PM
The deluge of flimsy white folding chairs has flooded the quad—graduation is nigh…
May 8, 2025 at 1:48 AM
The Hurst Summer Institute in Legal History has announced its 2025 Fellows! I was glad to be able to participate on the selection committee for this incredible cohort of scholars.

www.law.wisc.edu/hurst-instit...
2025 Hurst Fellows | University of Wisconsin Law SchoolSite iconsUniversity logo that links to main university websitefacebooktwitterxyoutubelinkedininstagramUW CrestBluesky
www.law.wisc.edu
April 29, 2025 at 11:13 PM
Today, Emory University @emoryuniversity.bsky.social faculty marched today to protest the erosion of shared governance at our institution and to urge President Greg Fenves to join the 200 college & university presidents who signed the AAUC’s statement of commitment to academic freedom.
April 23, 2025 at 5:52 PM
Last week, I spoke at a conference on capital punishment & religion at the University of Texas Law School. Best of all was meeting a hero of mine, Sister Helen Prejean, author of "Dead Man Walking"-- kind, down-to-earth, funny, and still doing the work at 85. We should all be so lucky!
April 8, 2025 at 11:28 PM
So thrilled for my advisee, Emilyn Hazelbrook, who defended her incredible honors thesis on battered woman syndrom, "Premeditated But Not Guilty: The Rise and Fall of the Battered Woman Legal Defense." Her committee awarded her highest honors!
March 26, 2025 at 9:38 PM
Our Bronze Star Award Arrived!!! SILVER, we’re coming for you!

Let me know if you need any pointers, @elizwilsonemory.bsky.social
March 20, 2025 at 3:46 PM
Reposted by Daniel LaChance
🔥 Rep. Al Green is not new to standing up
March 5, 2025 at 11:26 PM
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has an article today on the low morale of many faculty at Emory. I joined my colleagues (I'm the one in red) in protest of the erosion of shared governance at Emory. www.ajc.com/education/em...
February 9, 2025 at 11:09 PM
Reposted by Daniel LaChance
The President of Wesleyan is consistently the only University leader who stands up for the academic mission! @wesleyanuniversity.bsky.social #Academicsky
slate.com/life/2025/02...
Dear Fellow College Presidents: We Need to Do More Than Wait This One Out
Why civil society needs university leaders to speak up.
slate.com
February 9, 2025 at 1:00 AM
Emory Pres. Greg Fenves, who unleashed police violence on peaceful protestors last April, has signed an agreement with the US Dept of Eductation to enact reforms to protect students against anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian Discrimination. The DOE rightly characterized the violence as "gratuitous."
January 17, 2025 at 11:30 PM
This is a fantastic article that gives much needed scholarly attention to the 2019 film “Clemency” with Alfre Woodard and its portrayal of the psychic toll executions place on those who carry them out.
My new article "Dignity and the Drama of the Death Penalty" considers competing invocations of dignity in punishment, and how that impinges on conceptions of personhood.
Thanks to work of @dwlachance.bsky.social @lch-law-cult-hum.bsky.social among others:
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
January 16, 2025 at 7:09 PM
Moon over Emory
January 14, 2025 at 12:43 AM
New Year, New Novel, Same Cuddly Cat
January 4, 2025 at 8:26 PM
Back when I started teaching at Emory, President Carter would have lunch monthly with 4 faculty members. I was lucky enough to meet him this way.

He showed courage and leadership calling for an end to the death penalty in the United States. His moral vision is needed now more than ever.
December 30, 2024 at 1:48 AM
Too much Christmas!
December 27, 2024 at 9:59 PM
This is good news.

In the 1980s and 90s, politicians in both parties used executions to pander to fear and show their strength and moral clarity.

Trump has sought to revive that practice as part of his politics of fear and loathing. Now he can’t.

www.nytimes.com/2024/12/23/u...
Biden Commutes 37 Death Sentences Ahead of Trump’s Plan to Resume Federal Executions (Gift Article)
Those affected by the president’s action on Monday are still subject to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Three men will remain on federal death row.
www.nytimes.com
December 23, 2024 at 4:17 PM
Our undergrad program, which I lead, was awarded a "Bronze Star Award" for the soul-sucking, bureaucratic self-assessment report we have to file. We have been encouraged to "show off" our certificate to others.

I haven't been this excited since I won a certificate for "Most Polite" in Grade 5!
December 20, 2024 at 4:09 PM
Got engaged to this kind and handsome fella two nights ago :)
December 18, 2024 at 5:02 PM
I spoke with US News and World Report about efforts to get President Biden to commute the sentences of inmates currently on federal death row.

“We know that support for the death penalty is concentrated amongst white Protestant Republicans – a key part of his base.”

www.usnews.com/news/nationa...
www.usnews.com
December 16, 2024 at 11:46 PM
Visual Criminologists: Check out Emory Ph.D. candidate David Nichols's article on the degrading images of men in El Salvador's prisons produced and released by the state in 2020. This piece, published in the journal Social Text, is open access for three months:

read.dukeupress.edu/social-text/...
December 11, 2024 at 10:40 PM