Roger Fisher holds a Ph.D in History (1987) from McMaster and a J.D. (1989) from Osgoode Hall Law School. He has an M.A. (McMaster) and a B.A. (University of Ottawa) in Latin and Greek. His research speciality is on the history of copyright in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century as reflected in copyright lawsuits in the courts of England between 1700 and 1850. He has extensive experience working with archival documents from the period, primarly at The National Archives, Kew, U.K.

Research Interests

Upcoming Courses

Term	Course Number	Section	Title	Type
Summer 2025	AP/LA1010 3.0	A	Word Power	ONLN
Summer 2025	AP/HUMA3109 3.0	A	Law & Culture in the Ancient World	ONLN
Summer 2025	AP/LA1010 3.0	M	Word Power	ONLN

Roger Fisher holds a Ph.D in History (1987) from McMaster and a J.D. (1989) from Osgoode Hall Law School. He has an M.A. (McMaster) and a B.A. (University of Ottawa) in Latin and Greek. His research speciality is on the history of copyright in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century as reflected in copyright lawsuits in the courts of England between 1700 and 1850. He has extensive experience working with archival documents from the period, primarly at The National Archives, Kew, U.K.

My research speciality is on the history of copyright in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century as reflected in copyright lawsuits in the courts of England between 1700 and 1850. I have extensive experience working with archival documents from the period, primarly at The National Archives, Kew, U.K.

My book, Antigone v. Creon: Sophocles's Antigone as a Courtroom Drama (2014, Irwin Law) offers a new translation and an interpretation of this ancient Greek play using discourse analysis based on the forms of argumentation and speeches made in courts of law. 

I am presently in the final stages of a book manuscript entitled Improvising the Law of Copyright in Music in the late Eighteenth Century, which iprovides a wide-ranging perspective on a major copyright lawsuit between two of the most prominent and fiercely competitive firms of music sellers in London in the 1780s. The book offers for the first time a thorough assessment of the pleadings, the evidence, the exhibits, and the court orders, including new documents that I have discovered at The National Archives, U.K., sets the lawsuit in the legal, cultural and social history of the time, and provides a new assessment of the lawsuit and its place in the history of copyright in music.

I have also conducted extensive research at the National Archives, U.K. and at other archives in England in preparation of a biography on the legal and literary career of a prominent eighteenth-century English lawyer.

I am also preparing a paper involving the English lawyer and writer Thomas Watson, who translated Sophocles's Antigone into Latin, entitled "A Most Dangerous Play: Law, Politics, and Religion in Thomas Watson's Latin Translation of the Antigone."

Degrees

Ph.D. (History), McMaster University
J.D., Osgoode Hall Law School
M.A. (Classics), McMaster University
B.A. (Classical Studies: Greek and Latin), University of Ottawa

Professional Leadership

Past President, American Association of Neo-Latin Studies

Community Contributions

Contributor of calendars of English court records to The Anglo-American Legal Tradition (http://aalt.law.uh.edu/)

Research Interests

Upcoming Courses

Term	Course Number	Section	Title	Type
Summer 2025	AP/LA1010 3.0	A	Word Power	ONLN
Summer 2025	AP/HUMA3109 3.0	A	Law & Culture in the Ancient World	ONLN
Summer 2025	AP/LA1010 3.0	M	Word Power	ONLN