Linda Przybyszewski
Associate Professor
Field
American Legal and Constitutional History
American Cultural and Intellectual History
Profile
Przybyszewski received her Ph.D. from Stanford University (1989) and her B.A. from Northwestern University (1984). Before coming to Notre Dame, she taught at the University of Cincinnati. She 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. Her interest in gender and power led her to edit the memoirs of his wife, Malvina Shankin Harlan, Some Memories of a Long Life, 1854-1911 (2002). 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, “The Secularization of the Law and the Persistence of Religious Faith: The Case of Justice David J. Brewer” (Journal of American History, 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. Professor Przybyszewski has held several national fellowships, most recently from the American Council of Learned Societies.
Current Project
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.
Watch Professor Przybyszewski's talk at the Ohio Supreme Court on the Bible War: http://www.ohiochannel.org/multimedia/media.cfm?file_id=119016
Teaching Interests
Przybyszewski 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.
Recent Publications
“The Fuller Court (1888-1910): Property and Liberty,” in The Supreme Court of the United States: The Pursuit of Justice (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2005): 147-168.
“The Secularization of the Law and the Persistence of Religious Faith: The Case of Justice David J. Brewer,” Journal of American History, 91 (September 2004): 471-496.
Editor, Some Memories of a Long Life, 1854-1911 by Malvina Shanklin Harlan (New York: Modern Library, 2002), preface by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
“The Religion of a Jurist: Justice David Brewer and the Christian Nation,” Journal of Supreme Court History, 25 (Fall 2000): 228-242.
The Republic According to John Marshall Harlan, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999).
Contact
Office: 438 Decio Faculty Hall
Phone: (574) 631-7661
Email: Linda.Przybyszewski.1@nd.edu