Jeannie Suk ’02, an assistant professor of law at HLS, was awarded a 2009 Guggenheim Fellowship in support of her research on the legal construction of trauma. Fellows are appointed on the basis of “stellar achievement and exceptional promise for continued accomplishment.”
Suk, an HLS faculty member since 2006, has focused her research on criminal law and family law. She is the author of two books, including At Home in the Law, forthcoming from Yale University Press this fall. She will use her fellowship to write her third book, which will explore the ways in which ideas of psychological trauma have influenced views of human agency and experience that shape legal doctrine and legal discourse today. While a Guggenheim fellow, she will also be a Senior Fellow of the Humanities Center at Harvard.
“My work approaches legal studies through a humanistic lens,” said Suk. “Treating the law as a constitutive part of our culture reveals the ideas through which we govern ourselves and shape what we become. I’m grateful and excited for the support to continue this research.”
Prior to joining the HLS faculty, Suk served as a law clerk to Justice David H. Souter on the Supreme Court of the United States and Judge Harry T. Edwards on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
She studied literature at Yale College and Oxford University, where she was a Marshall Scholar. At HLS, she studied as a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow and was the Articles, Book Reviews and Commentaries Chair of the Harvard Law Review.
Suk is one of 180 artists, scientists and scholars to receive a 2009 Guggenheim Fellowship. This year’s recipients—representing 62 disciplines and 68 different academic institutions—were chosen from a pool of almost 3,000 applicants.
Past HLS faculty recipients include Lucien Bebchuk LL.M. ’80, S.J.D. ’84, Charles Fried, Morton Horwitz, Steven Shavell, Alan Stone, Mark Tushnet, Roberto Unger, and Alvin Warren.
The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation was established in 1925 by former United States Senator and Mrs. Simon Guggenheim in memory of their son to “add to the educational, literary, artistic, and scientific power of this country, and also to provide for the cause of better international understanding.” The foundation has granted more than $273 million in fellowships to nearly 16,700 individuals.