Justin Collings
I studied English and Italian literature as an undergraduate at Brigham Young University in my hometown of Provo, Utah. Upon graduation, I gave up the astronomical income normally associated with literary studies to pursue my first and most abiding love, Law, enrolling at the Yale Law School in the autumn of 2006. Avarice got the better of me, however, and during my 2L year at the law school I applied to the history department, where I have been a PhD student since 2008. I should graduate from the law school in the spring of 2010 before launching headlong into the empyrean wonderland of orals and dissertation.
I study the modern history of Western Europe, with a special interest Italy and Germany. My strongest substantive interest is in constitutional history, and my dissertation will likely focus on the intersection of postwar reconstruction, popular politics, human rights, and the rise and spread of constitutional justice in Western Europe after the Second World War. I will likely work under the direction of Jay Winter, Adam Tooze, and Frank Snowden. My orals fields may include the Western Constitutional Tradition, Europe since 1914, and American Legal History.
I married the former Lia Suttner in 2003, and we are the parents of three world-historically adorable little girls: Julia (5), Eli (3), and Katharine (1).
