Call For Nominations: The Penny Pether Law & Language Scholarship Award 2025

 

Call for Nominations: The Penny Pether Law & Language Scholarship Award 2025 

A passionate advocate for interdisciplinary scholarship in law, literature, and language, Penelope J. Pether (1957-2013) was Professor of Law at Villanova University School of Law and former Professor of Law and Director of Legal Rhetoric at the American University Washington College of Law. Her own scholarship focused not only on law, literature, and language, but also on constitutional and comparative constitutional law; legal theory, including constitutional theory; common law legal institutions, judging practices, and professional subject formation. 

Beginning in November 2013, the Penny Pether Award for Law & Language Scholarship has been given to an article or essay published during the preceding award period that exemplifies Penny’s commitment to law and language scholarship and pedagogy. This year’s award period will be the calendar year 2025.  

We are delighted to report that the Legal Humanities Initiative at the University of California, Santa Barbara, will now be providing much needed administrative support for the award. The selection committee is grateful for LHI’s commitment to Penny’s legacy.  The Committee selecting award recipients from among the articles and essays nominated will look for scholarship that not only embodies Penny’s passion and spirit but also has some or all of the following characteristics: 

1. “[S]cholarship concerning itself with the unique or distinctive insights that might emerge from interdisciplinary inquiries into ‘law’ grounded in the work of influential theorists of language and discourse.” 

2. Scholarship that “attempts to think through the relations among subject formation, language, and law.” 

3. Scholarship that provides “accounts of—and linguistic interventions in—acute and yet abiding crises in law, its institutions and discourses.” 

4. Scholarship and pedagogy, including work addressing injustices in legal-academic institutions and practices, that is “[c]arefully theorized and situated, insisting on engaging politics and law, [and that] charts ways for law and its subjects to use power, do justice.” 

More explanations and descriptions of these characteristics can be found in Penny’s chapter from which these quotations are drawn: Language, in Law and the Humanities: An Introduction (Austin Sarat et al. eds., Cambridge U. Press 2010). 

A list of past winners appears here: https://law.unlv.edu/lawyering-process/penny-pether 

Nominations should be sent by January 31, 2026, to Jeannine DeLombard at jdelombard@ucsb.edu. 

Any article or essay published during the calendar year 2025 is eligible.  You are free to nominate your own work and, apart from self-nominations, may nominate more than one work.  For self-nominations, pick the article published in 2025 that you believe best embodies the characteristics mentioned above. Please provide a citation and a pdf for each work you nominate.   

The Selection Committee includes David Caudill, Jeannine Marie DeLombard, Amy Dillard, Ian Gallacher, Lucy Jewel, Jeremy Mullem, Giuliana Perrone, Anne Ralph, and Kathy Stanchi. Members of the Selection Committee are not eligible for the award.  

Call For Nominations: Penny Pether Award

Call for Nominations: The Penny Pether Law & Language Scholarship Award 2019

A passionate advocate for interdisciplinary scholarship in law, literature, and language, Penelope J. Pether (1957-2013) was Professor of Law at Villanova University School of Law and former Professor of Law and Director of Legal Rhetoric at the American University Washington College of Law. Her own scholarship focused not only on law, literature, and language, but also on constitutional and comparative constitutional law; legal theory, including constitutional theory; common law legal institutions, judging practices, and professional subject formation.

Beginning in November 2013, the Penny Pether Award for Law & Language Scholarship has been given annually to an article or essay published during the preceding year that exemplifies Penny’s commitment to law and language scholarship and pedagogy.

The Committee selecting award recipients from among the articles and essays nominated will look for scholarship that not only embodies Penny’s passion and spirit but also has some or all of the following characteristics:

1. “[S]cholarship concerning itself with the unique or distinctive insights that might emerge from interdisciplinary inquiries into ‘law’ grounded in the work of influential theorists of language and discourse.”

2. Scholarship that “attempts to think through the relations among subject formation, language, and law.”

3. Scholarship that provides “accounts of—and linguistic interventions in—acute and yet abiding crises in law, its institutions and discourses.”

4. Scholarship and pedagogy, including work addressing injustices in legal-academic institutions and practices, that is “[c]arefully theorized and situated, insisting on engaging politics and law, [and that] charts ways for law and its subjects to use power, do justice.”

More explanations and descriptions of these characteristics can be found in Penny’s chapter from which these quotations are drawn: Language, in Law and the Humanities: An Introduction (Austin Sarat et al. eds., Cambridge U. Press 2010).

A list of past winners appears here: https://law.unlv.edu/lawyering-process/penny-pether

Nominations should be sent by January 31, 2020, to Karen Scullion at kmsculli@law.syr.edu.

Any article or essay published during the calendar year 2019 is eligible. You are free to nominate more than one work and to nominate work you’ve written. Please provide a citation and a pdf for each work you nominate.

The Selection Committee includes Linda Berger, Corinne Blalock, David Caudill, Amy Dillard, Bruce Hay, Ian Gallacher, Melissa Marlow, Jeremy Mullem, Nancy Modesitt, Stephen Paskey, Yvette Russell, Anne Ralph, and Terry Pollman.

Members of the Selection Committee are not eligible for the award.

Call For Nominations: The Penny Pether Law & Language Scholarship Award 2019

Call for Nominations: The Penny Pether Law & Language Scholarship Award 2019

A passionate advocate for interdisciplinary scholarship in law, literature, and language, Penelope J. Pether (1957-2013) was Professor of Law at Villanova University School of Law and former Professor of Law and Director of Legal Rhetoric at the American University Washington College of Law. Her own scholarship focused not only on law, literature, and language, but also on constitutional and comparative constitutional law; legal theory, including constitutional theory; common law legal institutions, judging practices, and professional subject formation.

Beginning in November 2013, the Penny Pether Award for Law & Language Scholarship has been given annually to an article or essay published during the preceding year that exemplifies Penny’s commitment to law and language scholarship and pedagogy.

The Committee selecting award recipients from among the articles and essays nominated will look for scholarship that not only embodies Penny’s passion and spirit but also has some or all of the following characteristics:

1. “[S]cholarship concerning itself with the unique or distinctive insights that might emerge from interdisciplinary inquiries into ‘law’ grounded in the work of influential theorists of language and discourse.”

2. Scholarship that “attempts to think through the relations among subject formation, language, and law.”

3. Scholarship that provides “accounts of—and linguistic interventions in—acute and yet abiding crises in law, its institutions and discourses.”

4. Scholarship and pedagogy, including work addressing injustices in legal-academic institutions and practices, that is “[c]arefully theorized and situated, insisting on engaging politics and law, [and that] charts ways for law and its subjects to use power, do justice.”

More explanations and descriptions of these characteristics can be found in Penny’s chapter from which these quotations are drawn: Language, in Law and the Humanities: An Introduction (Austin Sarat et al. eds., Cambridge U. Press 2010).

A list of past winners appears here:

https://law.unlv.edu/lawyering-process/penny-pether

Nominations should be sent by January 31, 2020, to Karen Scullion at kmsculli@law.syr.edu.

Any article or essay published during the calendar year 2019 is eligible.  You are free to nominate more than one work and to nominate work you’ve written. Please provide a citation and a pdf for each work you nominate. 

The Selection Committee includes Linda Berger, Corinne Blalock, David Caudill, Amy Dillard, Bruce Hay, Ian Gallacher, Melissa Marlow, Jeremy Mullem, Nancy Modesitt, Stephen Paskey, Yvette Russell, Anne Ralph, and Terry Pollman.

Members of the Selection Committee are not eligible for the award.

Call For Nominations: The Penny Pether Law & Language Scholarship Award 2017

From the mailbox via Keith J. Bybee, Syracuse University College of Law

Call for Nominations: The Penny Pether Law & Language Scholarship Award 2017 A passionate advocate for interdisciplinary scholarship in law, literature, and language, Penelope J. Pether (1957-2013) was Professor of Law at Villanova University School of Law and former Professor of Law and Director of Legal Rhetoric at the American University Washington College of Law. Her own scholarship focused not only on law, literature, and language, but also on constitutional and comparative constitutional law; legal theory, including constitutional theory; common law legal institutions, judging practices, and professional subject formation. Beginning in November 2013, the Penny Pether Award for Law & Language Scholarship has been given annually to an article or essay published during the preceding year (September 1 to September 1) that exemplifies Penny’s commitment to law and language scholarship and pedagogy.
 The Committee selecting award recipients from among the articles and essays nominated will look for scholarship that not only embodies Penny’s passion and spirit but also has some or all of the following characteristics: 1. “[S]cholarship concerning itself with the unique or distinctive insights that might emerge from interdisciplinary inquiries into ‘law’ grounded in the work of influential theorists of language and discourse.” 2. Scholarship that “attempts to think through the relations among subject formation, language, and law.” 3. Scholarship that provides “accounts of—and linguistic interventions in—acute and yet abiding crises in law, its institutions and discourses.” 4. Scholarship and pedagogy, including work addressing injustices in legal-academic institutions and practices, that is “[c]arefully theorized and situated, insisting on engaging politics and law, [and that] charts ways for law and its subjects to use power, do justice.” More explanations and descriptions of these characteristics can be found in Penny’s chapter from which these quotations are drawn: Language, in Law and the Humanities: An Introduction (Austin Sarat et al. eds., Cambridge U. Press 2010). Nominations should be sent by January 8, 2018, to J. Amy Dillard at adillard@ubalt.edu. You are free to nominate more than one work and to nominate work you’ve written. Please provide a citation and a pdf for each work you nominate.
 We are shifting our definition of the preceding year to simplify our process. But in this year of transition, for the 2017 prize, we will consider any work published between September 1, 2016 and December 31, 2017. In the future, we will work with a calendar year. The Selection Committee includes Linda Berger, David Caudill, Amy Dillard, Bruce Hay, Ian Gallacher, Melissa Marlow, Jeremy Mullem, Nancy Modesitt, Stephen Paskey, and Terrill Pollman. Members of the Selection Committee are not eligible for the award.
 J. Amy DillardAssociate Professor of LawUniversity of Baltimore School of Law1420 North Chares StreetBaltimore, MD 21201adillard@ubalt.edu  

Call For Nominations: Penny Pether Law and Language Scholarship Award 2016

From the mailbox:

Call for Nominations: The Penny Pether Law and Language Scholarship Award 2016 A passionate advocate for interdisciplinary scholarship in law, literature, and language,

Penelope J. Pether (1957-2013) was Professor of Law at Villanova University School of Law and former Professor of Law and Director of Legal Rhetoric at the American University Washington College of Law. Her own scholarship focused not only on law, literature, and language, but also on constitutional and comparative constitutional law; legal theory, including constitutional theory; common law legal institutions, judging practices, and professional subject formation. 

Beginning in November 2013, the Penny Pether Award for Law & Language Scholarship has been given annually to an article or essay published during the preceding year (September 1 to September 1) that exemplifies Penny’s commitment to law and language scholarship and pedagogy. 

The Committee selecting award recipients from among the articles and essays nominated will look for scholarship that not only embodies Penny’s passion and spirit but also has some or all of the following characteristics: 1. “[S]cholarship concerning itself with the unique or distinctive insights that might emerge from interdisciplinary inquiries into ‘law’ grounded in the work of influential theorists of language and discourse.” 2. Scholarship that “attempts to think through the relations among subject formation, language, and law.” 3. Scholarship that provides “accounts of—and linguistic interventions in—acute and yet abiding crises in law, its institutions and discourses.” 4. Scholarship and pedagogy, including work addressing injustices in legal-academic institutions and practices, that is “[c]arefully theorized and situated, insisting on engaging politics and law, [and that] charts ways for law and its subjects to use power, do justice.” 

More explanations and descriptions of these characteristics can be found in Penny’s chapter from which these quotations are drawn: Language, in Law and the Humanities: An Introduction (Austin Sarat et al. eds., Cambridge U. Press 2010). Nominations should be sent by November 30, 2016 to J. Amy Dillard at adillard@ubalt.edu. You are free to nominate more than one work and to nominate work you’ve written. Please provide a citation for each work you nominate. 

The Selection Committee includes Linda Berger, David Caudill, Amy Dillard, Bruce Hay, Ian Gallacher, Melissa Marlow, Jeremy Mullem, Nancy Modesitt, and Terry Pollman. Members of the Selection Committee are not eligible for the award.

 J. Amy Dillard

Visiting Professor of Law

IU-McKinney School of Law

530 West New York Street

Indianapolis, IN 46202

(703) 625-6675

adillard@ubalt.edu

Call for Nominations: The Penny Pether Award For Law and Language Scholarship 2015

Call for Nominations: The Penny Pether Law and Language Scholarship Award 2015

A passionate advocate for interdisciplinary scholarship in law, literature, and language, Penelope J. Pether was Professor of Law at Villanova University School of Law and former Professor of Law and Director of Legal Rhetoric at the American University Washington College of Law. Her own scholarship focused not only on law, literature, and language, but also on constitutional and comparative constitutional law; legal theory, including constitutional theory; common law legal institutions, judging practices, and professional subject formation.

Beginning in November 2013, the Penny Pether Award for Law & Language Scholarship has been given annually to an article or essay published during the preceding year (September 1 to September 1) that exemplifies Penny’s commitment to law and language scholarship and pedagogy.

The Committee selecting award recipients from among the articles and essays nominated will look for scholarship that not only embodies Penny’s passion and spirit but also has some or all of the following characteristics:

1. “[S]cholarship concerning itself with the unique or distinctive insights that might emerge from interdisciplinary inquiries into ‘law’ grounded in the work of influential theorists of language and discourse.”

2. Scholarship that “attempts to think through the relations among subject formation, language, and law.”

3. Scholarship that provides “accounts of—and linguistic interventions in—acute and yet abiding crises in law, its institutions and discourses.”

4. Scholarship and pedagogy, including work addressing injustices in legal-academic institutions and practices, that is “[c]arefully theorized and situated, insisting on engaging politics and law, [and that] charts ways for law and its subjects to use power, do justice.”

More explanations and descriptions of these characteristics can be found in Penny’s chapter from which these quotations are drawn: Language, in Law and the Humanities: An Introduction (Austin Sarat et al. eds., Cambridge U. Press 2010).

Nominations should be sent by November 13, 2015 to Jeremy Mullem at mullem@law.duke.edu. You are free to nominate more than one work and to nominate work you’ve written. Please provide a citation for each work you nominate.

The Selection Committee includes Linda Berger, David Caudill, Amy Dillard, Bruce Hay, Ian Gallacher, Melissa Marlow, Jeremy Mullem, Nancy Modesitt, and Terry Pollman.

Members of the Selection Committee are not eligible for the award. Jeremy Mullem Clinical Professor of Law Director of Legal Writing Duke University Law School 210 Science Drive Box 90360 Durham, NC 27708 mullem@law.duke.edu (919) 613-7136

Bruce Hay Wins Second Annual Penny Pether Award For Law and Language Scholarship

Amy Dillard, University of Baltimore School of Law, has announced:

On behalf of the award committee, it is my great pleasure to announce that Bruce Hay of Harvard Law School is the winner of the second annual Penny Pether Award for Law and Language Scholarship for his article The Damned Dolls, 26 Law and Literature 321 (2014).

Dozens of terrific articles and essays were nominated for the award.  In partial recognition of the strength and tremendous diversity of the works we were so lucky to read, we are also pleased to give honorable mention to Linda Edwards, Where Do the Prophets Stand?: Hamdi, Myth, and the Master’s Tools, 13 U. Conn. Pub. Int. L. J. 43 (2013). 

The committee thanks to everyone who nominated authors for the award and to the authors themselves for their great work.  We are proud to review this work in an annual way to honor the legacy of Professor Penny Pether.  Please watch for our announcement for nominations in the fall.

Amy Dillard

J. Amy Dillard
Associate Professor of Law
Univ. of Baltimore School of Law
1420 N. Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21201

Michael Burger Wins First Penny Pether Award

News from Amy Dillard on behalf of the Penny Pether Law and Language Scholarship Award Committee:

Michael Burger of Roger Williams University School of Law is the winner of the first annual Penny Pether Award for Law and Language Scholarship for his article Environmental Law/Environmental Literature.  40 Ecology L.Q. 1 (2013).  The award will be officially presented this Friday at the West Coast Rhetoric Scholarship Workshop at UNLV’s Boyd School of Law. Dozens of terrific articles and essays were nominated for the award.  In partial recognition of the strength and tremendous diversity of the works we were so lucky to read, we are also pleased to give honorable mention to Kevin Curran for his article, Hospitable Justice: Law and Selfhood in Shakespeare’s Sonnets, 9 Law, Culture, & Humanities 295 (2013), and to Ruthann Robson for her essay, 27 Words, 13 Memoir 85 (2013).

The committee wishes to thank everyone who nominated authors for the award and to the authors themselves for their great work.  It looks forward to making this award an annual tradition.    

[NB: Committee announcement edited slightly].

A New Award, Named For Penelope Pether

From Keith Bybee, Director, Institute for the Study of the Judiciary, Politics, and the Media at Syracuse University, announcement of a new award:

The Penny Pether Award for Law and Language Scholarship A passionate advocate for interdisciplinary scholarship in law, literature, and language, Penelope J. Pether was Professor of Law at Villanova University School of Law and former Professor of Law and Director of Legal Rhetoric at the American University Washington College of Law. Her own scholarship focused not only on law, literature, and language, but also on constitutional and comparative constitutional law; legal theory, including constitutional theory; common law legal institutions, judging practices, and professional subject formation. Beginning in November 2013, the Penny Pether Award for Law & Language Scholarship will be given annually to an article or essay published during the preceding year (September 1 to September 1) that exemplifies Penny’s commitment to law and language scholarship and pedagogy. The Committee selecting award recipients from among the articles and essays nominated will look for scholarship that not only embodies Penny’s passion and spirit but also has some or all of the following characteristics:1. “[S]cholarship concerning itself with the unique or distinctive insights that might emerge from interdisciplinary inquiries into ‘law’ grounded in the work of influential theorists of language and discourse.”2. Scholarship that “attempts to think through the relations among subject formation, language, and law.”3. Scholarship that provides “accounts of—and linguistic interventions in—acute and yet abiding crises in law, its institutions and discourses.”4. Scholarship and pedagogy that is “[c]arefully theorized and situated, insisting on engaging politics and law, [and that] charts ways for law and its subjects to use power, do justice.” More explanations and descriptions of these characteristics can be found in Penny’s chapter from which these quotations are drawn: Language, in Law and the Humanities: An Introduction (Austin Sarat et al. eds., Cambridge U. Press 2010). Nominations should be sent by October 25, 2013 to Jeremy Mullem at mullem@law.duke.edu.  You are free to nominate more than one work and to nominate work you’ve written.  Please provide a citation for each work you nominate. The Selection Committee includes Linda Berger, David Caudill, Amy Dillard, Ian Gallacher, Melissa Marlow, Jeremy Mullem, Nancy Modesitt, and Terry Pollman.  Members of the Selection Committee and other faculty at their schools are not eligible for the award.   ------------------------- Keith J. Bybee
Director, Institute for the Study of the Judiciary, Politics, and the Media at Syracuse University
Paul E. and the Hon. Joanne F. Alper '72 Judiciary Studies Professor, Syracuse University College of Law
Professor of Political Science, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs