This part of the academic year marks something of a ‘changing of the guard’, as some colleagues finish a year of research leave, and others begin their own period of research leave. One person from the Centre of Law and History Research who was ‘away’ in 2020-21 was our resident Scots law and legal history specialist, Dr Chathuni Jayathilaka. A quick interview for the blog seemed in order, to see what she has been up to, and to document the experience of pandemic research, for the legal historians of the future. She was duly cornered and interrogated by Gwen Seabourne.
GS: How has it been, trying to do research in this oddest of years, Chathuni? What difficulties have there been, and have you found any creative ways around them?
CJ: It’s been an interesting experience! I have been surprised by how much you can do with just a laptop, a good internet connection, the university library’s subscription to various databases and the aid of resourceful librarians. But there have been limitations as well: I had to redesign my projects for this year because I realised that the projects as originally conceived would run into problems created by an inability to access key sources. I’m not sure redesigning an entire project counts as finding a creative way around the problem…
GS: What have you been researching?
CJ: I have been working on two papers, both to do with the law’s response to supervening events which render contractual performance impossible. The first paper explores why the English contract of sale for goods has both a doctrine of frustration and a rule on the passing of risk. The second paper examines the concept of fault in relation to supervening events through a historical lens.