The American Society for Legal History will host a Student Research Colloquium (SRC) on Wednesday, October 25, and Thursday, October 26, 2017, immediately preceding the ASLH’s annual meeting in Las Vegas, Nevada. The SRC enables a small number of Ph.D. students and law students to discuss their in-progress dissertations and law review articles with distinguished ASLH-affiliated scholars.
The SRC’s target audience includes early-post-coursework graduate students and historically minded law students. The colloquium seeks to introduce such students to legal history, to each other, to the ASLH, and to the legal-historical scholarly community generally. Students working in all chronological and geographical fields are encouraged to apply, as are students whose projects engage legal-historical themes but who have not yet received any formal training in legal history. Applicants who have not had an opportunity to present their work at ASLH annual meetings or who have not otherwise had an opportunity to discuss their work with legal historians are particularly encouraged to apply. A student may be on the program for the annual meeting and participate in the SRC in the same year.
Each participating student will pre-circulate a twenty-page, double-spaced, footnoted paper to the entire group. The group will discuss these papers at the colloquium, under the guidance of two faculty directors. The ASLH will provide at least partial and, in most cases, total reimbursement for travel, hotel, and conference-registration costs.
The application deadline is July 15, 2017. Applicants should submit:
* a cover letter;
* a CV;
* a two-page, single-spaced “research statement,” describing an in-progress project; and
* a letter of recommendation from a faculty member, sent separately from, or together with, the other materials.
Organizers will notify all applicants of their decisions by August 15, 2017. Please direct questions and applications to John Wertheimer at <email>.
Kathryn T. Preyer Scholars: Call for Papers, 2017
Named after the late Kathryn T. Preyer, a distinguished historian of the law of early America known for her generosity to young 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. Papers already submitted to the ASLH Program Committee–whether or not accepted for an existing panel–and papers never previously submitted are equally eligible. Once selected, Preyer Award winners must present their paper as part of the Preyer panel, and they will be removed from any other panel.
Submissions should be a single MS Word document consisting of a complete curriculum vitae, contact information, and a complete draft of the paper to be presented. Papers must not exceed 40 pages (12 point font, double-spaced) and must contain supporting documentation. In past competitions, the Committee has given preference to draft articles and essays, though the Committee will still 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 June 15, 2017.
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 in Las Vegas, NV in October 2017. 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 as Microsoft Word attachments by June 15, 2017 to the chair of the Preyer Committee, H. Timothy Lovelace <email>. He will forward them to the other committee members.
The 2017 Preyer Memorial Committee
H. Timothy Lovelace, (2014) Chair, Indiana University
Melissa Hayes (2014), Independent Scholar
Michael Hoeflich (2014), University of Kansas
Rabia Belt (2016), Stanford University
Jed Shugerman (2016), Fordham University
More information, including a list of past Preyer Scholars, can be found here: https://aslh.net/about-aslh/honors-awards-and-fellowships/preyer-scholars/
Shortlist for the Langum Prize in American Legal History and Biography Announced
The shortlisted books are:
Ballot Battles: The History of Disputed Elections in the United States, by Edward B. Foley (Oxford University Press).
Discrediting the Red Scare: The Cold War Trials of James Kutcher, “The Legless Veteran,” by Robert Justin Goldstein (University Press of Kansas).
The Great Yazoo Lands Sale: The Case of Fletcher v. Peck, by Charles F. Hobson (University Press of Kansas).
Vagrant Nation: Police Power, Constitutional Change, and the Making of the 1960s, by Risa Goluboff (Oxford University Press).
The final decision will be announced on the Langum Charitable Trust’s website, www.langumtrust.org, in about one month.
Fellowship Opportunity, Stanford Center for Law and History
This fellowship is intended for people who have completed (or will soon complete) their training in law and history and who seek to pursue an academic career at the intersection of the two fields.
The Stanford Center for Law and History fellowship is a residential fellowship that provides an opportunity to conduct research in the dynamic environment of Stanford University. We prefer two-year fellowships to help the fellow complete a significant body of independent scholarship, but we are willing to consider one-year terms. We expect that fellows will dedicate most of their time to pursuing their proposed research projects but will also devote some time to organizing and implementing other Center activities, including an ongoing workshop series and an annual conference. Fellows are encouraged to become part of a lively law-school-wide community of individuals with an interest in academia by attending weekly faculty lunch seminars and by participating in activities with the other fellows at Stanford Law School to learn more about one another’s scholarship and about academic life more generally. In addition, fellows are encouraged to attend and participate in the broad range of lectures and workshops available within the broader university, including inter alia, the History Department and the Stanford Humanities Center.
For the 2017-2018 fellowship, we will provide a workspace, a competitive salary, and a generous benefits package. Applicants who have completed (or are soon to complete) both a J.D. and a Ph.D in history are strongly preferred.
The Application Process:
All applicants should apply through the Stanford Careers website, Job Number 73767: https://stanfordcareers.stanford.edu/job-search?jobId=73767, and should include the following: (1) a CV; (2) a sample of academic writing; (3) a research proposal of no more than five double-space pages (briefly outlining past work but focused primarily on research to be undertaken during the fellowship); and (4) official transcripts of all academic work pursued in college, as well as in graduate programs. In addition, (5) applicants should provide two letters of recommendation, to be emailed directly by the recommenders themselves to Molly Pahkamaa at mpahkama@law.stanford.edu. All applications should be submitted no later than Tuesday, February 28, 2017.
The Stanford Center for Law and History, directed by Professor Amalia Kessler, brings together faculty and students from across Stanford University’s many schools and departments (and beyond) to participate in a broad range of conferences, workshops, and lectures devoted to examining the multifaceted interrelationships between law and history (without geographic, temporal, or other subject-area limitations).
NEH Public Scholars Program
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) invites applications for the 2017 round of the Public Scholar Program, which is intended to support well-researched books in the humanities that have been conceived and written to reach a broad readership. Books supported through the Public Scholar Program might present a narrative history, tell the stories of important individuals, analyze significant texts, provide a synthesis of ideas, revive interest in a neglected subject, or examine the latest thinking on a topic. Most importantly, they should present significant humanities topics in a way that is accessible to general readers.
The Public Scholar Program is open to both independent scholars and individuals affiliated with scholarly institutions. It offers a stipend of $4,200 per month for a period of six to twelve months. The maximum stipend is $50,400 for a twelve-month period. Applicants must have U.S. citizenship or residency in the U.S. for the three years prior to the application deadline. In addition, they must have previously published a book with a university or commercial press or at least three articles and essays in publications reaching a large national or international audience.
Application guidelines (including a full statement of the eligibility requirements) and a list of F.A.Q.’s for the Public Scholar Program are available on the NEH’s website at http://www.neh.gov/grants/research/public-scholar-program. The application deadline for this cycle is February 1, 2017. Recipients may begin the term of the grant as early as September 1, 2017 or as late as September 1, 2018. In the last cycle of the competition, the Endowment received 318 applications and made 30 awards.
A list of previously funded projects and several samples of successful applications are available in the sidebar at the right of the webpage linked above. For additional information, please write to publicscholar@neh.gov.
Schwarzman Scholars Program – Visiting Faculty Positions
The Schwarzman Scholars Program at Tsinghua University in Beijing seeks to recruit Visiting Faculty from the world’s leading universities and
institutions for the 2017-18 academic year. These international scholars and practitioners will engage a highly motivated cohort of future
leaders through Schwarzman Scholars’ unique, interdisciplinary curriculum focused on contemporary global issues. Visiting Faculty also
have opportunities to pursue independent research and develop collaborations with Tsinghua colleagues. Eligible candidates include
early, mid-career and senior level academics who are available to spend from one to eleven months in Beijing. For more information, see the Schwarzman Scholars Visiting Faculty Flyer.
ASLH Announces New Book Prize: Peter Gonville Stein Book Award
The American Society for Legal History announces the Peter Gonville Stein Book Award, to be presented annually for the best book in legal history written in English. This award is designed to recognize and encourage the further growth of fine work in legal history that focuses on all non-US regions, as well as global and international history. To be eligible, a book must sit outside of the field of US legal history and be published during the previous two calendar years. Announced at the annual meeting of the ASLH, this honor includes a citation on the contributions of the work to the broader field of legal history. A book may only be considered for the Stein Award, the Reid Award, or the Cromwell Book Prize. It may not be nominated for more than one of these three prizes.
For the 2017 prize, the Stein Award Committee will accept nominations of any book that bears a copyright date of 2015 or 2016 as it appears on the printed version of the book.
Nominations for the Stein Award should be submitted by March 15, 2017. Please send an e-mail to steinaward@aslh.net and include: (1) a curriculum vitae of the author; and (2) the name, mailing address, e-mail address, and phone number of the contact person at the press who will provide the committee with two copies of the book. This person will be contacted shortly after the deadline. (If a title is short-listed, six further copies will be requested from the publisher.)
Please contact the committee chair, Mitra Sharafi, with any questions: mitra.sharafi@wisc.edu
ACLS Digital Extension Grants: Deadline January 25, 2017
The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) is pleased to invite applications for the 2016-17 ACLS Digital Extension Grant competition, which is made possible by the generous assistance of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. It is hoped that these grants will help advance humanistic scholarship by enhancing established digital research projects and extending their reach to new communities of users.
This program aims to extend the opportunity to participate in the digital transformation of humanistic inquiry to a greater number of humanities scholars. To this end, projects supported by ACLS Digital Extension Grants may:
Extend established digital projects and resources with content that adds diversity or interdisciplinary reach
Develop new systems of making established digital resources available to broader audiences and/or scholars from diverse institutions
Foster new team-based work or collaborations that allow scholars from institutions with limited digital infrastructure to exploit digital resources
Create new forms and sites for scholarly engagement with the digital humanities. Projects that document and recognize participant engagement are strongly encouraged
Support projects aimed at preserving and making sustainable established digital projects and content.
ACLS will award up to six Digital Extension Grants in this competition year. Each grant provides funding of up to $125,000 to support a range of project costs, including, where necessary, salary replacement for faculty or staff. As this program places special emphasis on extending access to digital research opportunities to scholars working at US colleges and universities of all categories, applicants also may request up to an additional $25,000 to fund concrete plans to collaborate with and build networks among scholars from US higher education institutions of diverse profiles. Thus each grant carries a maximum possible award of $150,000.
The deadline for applications is 9pm EST, January 25, 2017. Applications will be accepted only through ACLS’s Online Fellowship and Grant Application (OFA) system.
Additional information about the eligibility criteria and terms of ACLS Digital Extension Grants is available at www.acls.org/programs/digitalextension/. Questions may be directed to fellowships@acls.org. For more information about ACLS programs, visit www.acls.org.
ASLH Election Results Announced
At the Saturday luncheon of the 2016 annual meeting in Toronto, President Rebecca Scott announced the results of the elections for the Board of Directors and Nominating Committee. The following members stand elected to the Board, where they will serve three-year terms:
Alexandra Havrylyshyn (graduate student representative), University of California, Berkeley
Angela Fernandez, University of Toronto
Catharine MacMillan, King’s College London
Kunal Parker, University of Miami
Christopher Schmidt, Chicago-Kent College of Law/American Bar Foundation
The new members of the Nominating Committee, who will also serve three-year terms, are
Mitra Sharafi, University of Wisconsin
Karen Tani, University of California, Berkeley
J. Willard Hurst Summer Institute in Legal History
Call for Applications Application Deadline: December 1, 2016
The American Society for Legal History and the Institute for Legal Studies at the University of Wisconsin Law School are pleased to invite applications for the ninth biennial Hurst Summer Institute in Legal History. The purpose of the Hurst Institute is to advance the approach to legal scholarship fostered by J. Willard Hurst in his teaching, mentoring, and scholarship. The Hurst Institute assists scholars from law, history, and other disciplines in pursuing research on the legal history of any part of the world.
The 2017 Hurst Institute will be led by Mitra Sharafi, Associate Professor of Law and Legal Studies (with History affiliation) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The two-week program features presentations by guest scholars, discussions of core readings in legal history, and analysis of the work of the participants in the Institute. The ASLH Hurst Selection Committee will select twelve Fellows to participate in this event.
Eligibility
Scholars in law, history and other disciplines pursuing research on legal history of any part of the world are eligible to apply. Preference will be given to applications from scholars at an early stage of their career (beginning faculty members, doctoral students who have completed or almost completed their dissertations, and J.D. graduates with appropriate backgrounds).
Fellowship Requirements
Fellows are expected to be in residence for the entire two-week term of the Institute, to participate in all program activities of the Institute, and to give an informal works-in-progress presentation in the second week of the Institute.
Application Process
Details of the application process can be found on the Hurst Institute website. Applications will be accepted until December 1, 2016. Please send questions by email.
