Raoul Berger-Mark DeWolfe Howe Legal History Fellowship

The Harvard Law School announces a visiting fellowship in legal history funded by a generous donation from the estate of the late Raoul Berger.

The School is seeking fellows who have a J.D. degree, who have completed the required coursework for their doctorate degree, or who have recently been awarded the doctorate degree. A JD is not required. We will also consider applicants who are beginning a teaching career in either law or history. The purpose of the fellowship is to enable the fellow to complete a major piece of writing in the field of legal history, broadly defined. There are no limitations as to geographical area or time period. Fellows are expected to spend the majority of their time on their own research. They are also asked to help to coordinate the Legal History Colloquium, which meets four or five times each semester. The Berger Fellow is invited to present their own work. Fellows will be required to be in residence at the Harvard Law School during the academic year (September through May).

Applicants for the fellowship for 2008-09 should address a letter to the co-chairs of the Berger Fellowship Program, Professors Bruce Mann and Jed Shugerman, at the Harvard Law School, Cambridge, MA 02318.

Applications should outline briefly the fellow's proposed project (no more than five typewritten pages) and should contain a curriculum vitae that gives the applicant's educational background, publications, works in progress, and other relevant experience, accompanied by official transcripts of all academic work done in college or at the graduate level. The applicant should arrange for two academic references to be sent to the co-chairs. Applications by e-mail are preferred (the transcripts may be sent by regular mail): cigoe@law.harvard.edu.

The deadline for applications is February 2, 2009, and announcement of the award will be made by March 3.

The fellow selected will be awarded a stipend of $28,600, which includes an allowance for health insurance and research expenses.

For further information contact Professor Shugerman's assistant:

Carol Igoe
Harvard Law School
Griswold 4 North
Cambridge, MA 02138
617-495-4863
cigoe@law.harvard.edu

Raoul Berger Fellows 2007-2008

Cynthia Nicoletti got her BA from the University of Virginia in 1999 and J.D. from Harvard Law School in 2003. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Virginia and her dissertation is entitled "The Great Question of the War: the Legal Status of Secession in the Aftermath of the Civil War, 1865-1869."

Owen Williams got his AB from Dartmouth College in 1974 and a MA in philosophy from Cambridge University in 1976. After spending twenty-four years on Wall Street, at Salomon Brothers and Goldman Sachs, Owen returned to the academy receiving his MA and MPhil in history at Yale University and a MSL at Yale Law School. His Ph.D. dissertation is entitled "Lincoln's Justices: The Supreme Court After the Civil War."

Previous Raoul Berger Visiting Fellows

The Berger Fellow for the academic year 2006-07 is Diana I. Williams, AB, magna cum laude in History, Harvard College '95; MA, History, UC-Berkeley; MA, English, Harvard. She is revising her dissertation from the History of American Civilization Program at Harvard, "'They Call it Marriage': the Interracial Louisiana Family and the Making of American Legitimacy." During this fellowship year she is in residence at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African-American Research.

The Berger Fellow for the academic year 2005-06 was Daniel J. Sharfstein, AB, summa cum laude in American History and Literature and Afro-American Studies, Harvard College '94; JD, Yale Law School, '00. Mr. Sharfstein is the author of, among other things, "The Secret History of Race in the United States," 112 Yale Law Journal 1473 (2003). He has been awarded the fellowship to complete a book tentatively entitled The Color Line: A History of Race, the Law, and American Lives.