Professor Lisa Ford
BA(Hons 1)/LLB(Hons 1)/MA (UQ), MA, MPhil, PhD (Columbia)
A graduate of Columbia University in New York, Professor Ford is a legal historian whose work centres on ideas and practices of order in the post-1763 British Empire and the early national United States. She is the prize-winning author of three monographs: Settler Sovereignty: Jurisdiction and Indigenous People in America and Australia, 1788-1836 (Harvard UP, 2010); Rage for Order: The British Empire and the Origins of International Law, 1800-1850 (Harvard UP, 2016), co-authored with Professor Lauren Benton; and The King's Peace: Law and Order in the British Empire (Harvard UP, 2021). Professor Ford has also co-edited two books: with Tim Rowse, Between Indigenous and Settler Governance (Routledge 2013); and with Peter Cane and Mark McMillan, The Cambridge Legal History of Australia (Cambridge UP, 2022).
She is currently working on two ARC-funded projects: a collaborative study of British Imperial Commissions of Inquiry, from 1819-1840 (DP180100537) and a pan-imperial study of declarations of martial law, 1700-1900 (FT190100232).
- Publications
- Media
- Grants
- Awards
- Research Activities
- Engagement
- Teaching and Supervision
- FT190100232, Empire of Emergency (2020-2024) (future fellow), a study of martial law in the British Empire from 1700-1900
- DP180100537, Inquiring into Empire (2018-2022) (lead CI), a study of the colonial commissions of inquiry that remade the British Empire after the Napoleonic Wars, 1819-1840
- DE120100593, Protecting the Peace (2012-2017) (DECRA fellow), a study of protection and legal reform in the British Empire, 1800-1840
- DP110103832, Convicts, Empire and Order (2011-2013) (sole CI), a study of peace keeping and everyday ordering in the British Empire, 1760-1840
- LE180100048, Foundations of the Common Law Library (Austlii, 2018)
- LE150100051, The Australasian Legal History Libraries, Stage II (Austlii, 2015)
- LE120100062, The Australian Legal History Library (Austlii, 2012)
- Australian Learning and Teaching Council, After Standards: The Future of History (2011-2012)
- The Robert E. Dalton Award from the American Society of International Law for Outstanding Contribution in the Field of Foreign Relations Law (2023)Â
- The Dean's Monograph Award (2017)
- The Crawford Medal for Outstanding Contribution to the Humanities by an Early Career Scholar (2012)
- The Littleton-Griswold Prize awarded by the American Historical Association for the best book in any subject on the history of American Law and Society (2010)
- The New South Wales Premier's History Award (General category) (2010)
- The Thomas J. Wilson Prize for the best first book manuscript in any field to be published by Harvard University Press (2010)
- The Bancroft Dissertation Prize for the best American Studies Dissertation submitted to Columbia University in 2007 (2008)
My Teaching
2023: Slavery and its Legacies
2022: Convenor of Honours, School of Humanities
2022: The Humanities, then and now
2022: Research Skills in the Humanities
2018: Deputy Head of School (Education)
2017: Convenor of History and Area Studies Group
2014-2015: Slavery and Freedom
2010-11: Australia: Protest & Memory
2009-11; 2018: Introduction to History: The Big Picture (World History)
2009: Winners & Losers
2009: Welfare & Poverty in Australian History