Robbins Fellow Professor Judy Gaughan has a long history with the Robbins Collection; her first Fellowship was in 2000 shortly after she received her PhD from UC Berkeley. In the intervening decades she has visited five more times. She returned to the Collection this spring to research a new project, foreigners in Roman courts, where she looks at how provincial governors helped to shape criminal legal procedure in the Late Republic and Early Roman Empire.
“As a Fellow, I have almost all of the resources available in the world for me to complete this project,” Professor Gaughan said. She made use of her extensive knowledge of the Collection during this research trip, accessing materials from the Robbins Collection stacks, the Law Library, and the reference materials in the reading room. The journal compilations such as Iura, Labeo, Zeitschrift der Savigny Stiftung, and recent editions of Roman Law journals were particularly helpful. “Since I am at a small university with limited resources, the Robbins Collection has allowed me to get up to date on recent research that will allow me to be a better teacher of Roman law for the next generation of scholars,” she said.
This visit to the Robbins Collection also provided Professor Gaughan an opportunity to access more rare books, like Ludwig Mitteis’ Reichsrecht und Volksrecht and Antonius Mattheus’ On Crimes: A Commentary on Books XLVII and XLVIII of the Digest. She commented, “The re–sources in the Robbins stacks, in particular, are often hard, and sometimes even impossible, to get my hands on if I am not at the Robbins Collection in person.” For Professor Gaughan, doing her research at the Collection has other benefits. “The table made available to me in the Reading Room is a significant resource. I am able to keep books on my desk for easy access and use the reference materials with ease. The staff are helpful when I need assistance in getting the materials that I need. They all also have great insight and are, frankly, just pleasant to be around,” she shared.
In 2009 Professor Judy Gaughan’s book, Murder Was Not a Crime: Homicide and Power in the Roman Republic, was published by The University of Texas Press. She is currently an Associate Professor of History and Philosophy at Colorado State University, Pueblo.