Quill is a digital humanities research project based at Pembroke College, founded in 2015 by Dr Nicholas Cole. The project's platform and research enhance understanding of how some of the key constitutional and legal texts of the modern world have been created, through the digital presentation of primary source material and the development of analytical tools that provide dynamic insights into the drafting of text and the context within which decisions and compromises were reached. The importance of these texts in continuing to shape modern law and politics ensures the project’s on-going relevance and impact.
The platform’s directory can be accessed here. The project welcomes enquiries from graduate students whose work intersects with the research areas below. On-site access to unpublished material is sometimes possible.
Quill’s current research focuses on:
United States Constitutional History – The project’s on-going study of the foundations of American constitutionalism, at both federal and state level, enables legal practitioners, scholars, students, and the general public to better understand America's constitutional democracy and the tradition of civil discourse through which it was created and can be perpetuated. The US state constitution network brings together those with an interest in this area of history and holds regular seminars in Oxford – to sign up to the mailing list, email quill@pmb.ox.ac.uk.
The Indian Constitution – The AHRC-funded PACT project (Pluralist Agreement and Constitutional Transformation) has been using Quill’s platform to study the making of the Indian constitution, as part of an initiative to explore constitution-making as an alternative source of democratic legitimacy to elections for pluralist politics. Alongside the plenary debates of the Indian Constituent Assembly, the project has made available committee discussions, petitions, public responses and the wider debate of the period which will enable further study into the context of public opinion against which the Indian constitution was authored.
Writing Peace – Writing Peace brings together archives, private papers, and oral histories from across the political spectrum to create a rounded view of the context and detail of the peace process in Northern Ireland. The project is led by Professor Ian McBride and enjoys partnerships with around fifteen institutions across Ireland. The recently-launched Writing Peace Index, enabled by the Government of Ireland Reconciliation Fund, has been designed to enhance access to scattered archival materials relating to the peace process.
The Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia – In partnership with leading legal scholars across Australia, Quill’s work explores the drafting the Australian constitution in the 1890’s, making some of the primary source material available online for the first time. The project is shedding new light on the issues were most important to the drafters at the time - the tension between states’ rights and majority rule, the control of railways and waterways, customs and excise – while also giving present-day lawyers and researchers a tool for delving into present-day constitutional issues.
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