Through the lens of history, this seminar will explore the relationship between law and colonialism. The legacies of empire remain palpable, as is evident in continuing settler presence, occupations and territorial annexations, and the ongoing subordination of formerly colonized populations. At the same time, there has been a long-running debate over whether law was empire’s emissary and a tool of domination deployed for the subjugation of colonized peoples, whether it was a tool that colonized populations deployed to resist domination, or whether evidence exists to suggest that law was a double-edged sword, susceptible to being deployed as a tool of repression while also being replete with tools to resist imperial domination. Through a close reading of multi-disciplinary histories of empire, this seminar will interrogate law’s role in the empire, globally, locally, and trans-imperially.