Linda Przybyszewski
Title
Associate Professor
Graduate Program Field
United States History
Specialization
Cultural; Intellectual; Legal
Education
Ph.D. Stanford University 1989)
B.A. Northwestern University (1984)
Research and Teaching Interests
Professor Przybyszewski is interested in how people have justified their use of the power and authority of the state by reference to racial, moral, and religious reasoning. In The Republic According to John Marshall Harlan (1999), she explained how the only consistent defender of black civil rights on the United States Supreme Court in the 19th Century justified his famous dissents, including Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), through his views of the constitution, race, and religion.Przybyszewski became intrigued by the popular legal and religious writings of Justice David Brewer, the most-widely read jurist of the late 19th Century. Her article on Brewer, "Judicial Conservatism and Protestant Faith: The Case of Justice David J. Brewer," Journal of American History (September 2004) is part of larger project on the role of religious faith in the legal thought of ministers, doctors, and jurists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She teaches courses on legal and cultural history, including crime, the gap between popular and academic history, the U.S. Civil War and Reconstruction, and the history of fashion and dress.
Profile
Przybyszewski is working on two book projects. The first is a study of the Cincinnati Bible War which began when city's school board ended Bible reading in 1869. She is also writing a book on how American learned (and then forgot) how to dress and sew in the 20th Century. Professor Przybyszewski has held several national fellowships, most recently from the American Council of Learned Societies. Her most recent publication is Religion, Morality and the Constitutional Order for the American Historical Association (2011).
Contact Information
Office Location: 438 Decio
Phone: 574-631-7661
Email: Przybyszewski.1@nd.edu
Mailing Address:
219 O'Shaugnessy Hall
Notre Dame, IN 46556