Blum, Binyamin

Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Global Programs at University of California College of the Law (San Francisco). As a legal historian of the British Empire, Blum specializes in the relation between law and colonialism during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Blum’s current book project, Forensic Culture in the Age of Empire, focuses on the colonial origins of forensic science. Building on the observation that forensic technologies were often invented by non-scientists in the colonies, the book explores the cultural underpinnings of forensic epistemology as a new approach towards fact-finding. Blum also writes on current issues of evidence and proof, such as the exclusion of unlawfully obtained evidence, spousal privilege among same-sex partners, rape shield statutes and character evidence.