Kathryn T. Preyer Scholars

Criteria

Early-career scholars who wish to present a paper on any topic in legal, institutional and/or constitutional history, at the annual ASLH conference.

Amount

$500 cash + $750 reimbursement

Deadline

April 1, 2024

Named after the late Kathryn T. Preyer, a distinguished historian of the law of early America known for her generosity to early career legal historians, the program of Kathryn T. Preyer Scholars is designed to help legal historians at the beginning of their careers. At the annual meeting of the Society two early career legal historians designated Kathryn T. Preyer Scholars will present what would normally be their first papers to the Society. The generosity of Professor Preyer’s friends and family has enabled the Society to offer a small honorarium to the Preyer Scholars and to reimburse, in some measure or entirely, their costs of attending the meeting. The competition for Preyer Scholars is organized by the Society’s Kathryn T. Preyer Memorial Committee.

Submissions are welcome on any topic in legal, institutional and/or constitutional history. Early career scholars, including those pursuing graduate or law degrees, those who have completed their terminal degree within the previous year, and those independent scholars at a comparable stage, are eligible to apply. At the annual meeting of the Society two early career legal historians designated Kathryn T. Preyer Scholars will present what would normally be their first papers to the Society. While papers simultaneously submitted to the ASLH Program committee are eligible, Preyer Award winners must present their paper as part of the Preyer panel and will be removed from any other panel.

Submissions should consist of a single MS Word document consisting of a complete curriculum vitae, contact information, and a complete draft of the paper to be presented. Papers should not exceed 50 pages (12-point font, double-spaced). In past competitions, the Committee has given preference to draft articles and essays, though the Committee will also consider shorter conference papers, as one of the criteria for selection will be the suitability of the paper for reduction to a twenty-minute oral presentation. The deadline for submission is April 1, 2024.

The two Kathryn T. Preyer Scholars will receive a $500 cash award and reimbursement of expenses up to $750 for travel, hotels, and meals. Each will present the paper that s/he submitted to the competition at the Society’s annual meeting. The Society’s journal, Law and History Review, has published several past winners of the Preyer competition, though it is under no obligation to do so.

Please send submissions by April 1, 2024 to preyeraward@aslh.net.

Committee Members

  • Gregory Ablavsky, Chair
    Stanford University

  • Ari Schreiber
    University of Toronto

  • Binyamin Blum
    University of California, Hastings College of Law

  • Uponita Mukherjee
    Fordham University

  • Gautham Rao
    (ex officio, Editor, Law & History Review)
    American University

  • Laura Weinrib
    Harvard University

Past Recipients

2024

Christen Hammock Jones (University of Pennsylvania)

Consuming Abortion on Demand: Medicine, Law, & Consumer Rights After Roe

2024

Grace Watkins (Yale University)

Incurable Entanglement: The Hybrid Powers of Campus Police

2023

Tamar Menashe (Emory University)

A Person of the Imperial Supreme Court: Jewish Litigation in Speyer and the Struggle to Belong

2023

Rebecca Horwitz-Willis (Harvard University)

Educating a Class of Unfortunates:’ Crime Control, Child Protection, and the Compulsory School Movement, 1888 – 1903

2022

Kyle DeLand (University of California, Berkeley)

"California Redeemed: Equity, Fraud, and Land Monopoly in the Moral Economy of Colonial Property, 1831-1861"

2022

Evelyn Atkinson (University of Chicago)

"Telegraph Torts: The Lost Lineage of the Public Service Corporation"

2021

Teal Arcadi (Princeton University)

Concrete Leviathan: Interstate Highway Litigation and the Clash of Experts and Citizens in Modern America

2021

Naama Maor (Tel Aviv University)

In Search of the “Real Culprits”: The Adult Delinquent in a Progressive Era Juvenile Court

2020

Smita Ghosh (University of Pennsylvania and University of Pennsylvania Law School)

2020

Ivon Padilla-Rodriguez (Columbia University)

2019

Ofra Bloch (Yale Law School)

2019

Brianna Lane Nofil (Columbia University)

2018

Myisha Eatmon (Northwestern University)

2018

Jane Manners (Princeton University)

2017

Kellen Funk (Princeton University)

2017

Shaun Ossei-Owusu (Columbia Law School)

2016

Catherine Evans (University of Toronto)

2016

Giuliana Perrone (University of California, Berkeley)

2015

Danielle Boaz (University of North Carolina-Charlotte)

2015

Maeve Glass (Princeton University)

2014

Gregory Ablavsky (University of Pennsylvania)

2014

Rabia Belt (University of Michigan)

2013

Matthew A. Axtell (New York University School of Law, Princeton University)

2013

Elizabeth Papp Kamali (University of Michigan)

2012

Sarah Levine-Gronningsater (University of Chicago)

2012

Taisu Zhang (Yale University)

2011

Kevin Arlyck (New York University)

2011

Anne Fleming (University of Pennsylvania)

2011

Michael Schoeppner (University of Florida)

2010

Melissa Hayes (Northern Illinois University)

2010

Katherine Turk (University of Chicago)

2009

Cary Franklin (Yale University)

2009

Elizabeth Katz (University of Virginia)

2008

Cynthia Nicoletti (University of Virginia)

2008

Joshua Stein (University of California, Los Angeles)

2007

Gautham Rao (University of Chicago)

2007

Laura Weinrib (Princeton University)

2006

Sophia Z. Lee (Yale University)

2006

Karen M. Tani (University of Pennsylvania)