Elizabeth Bowyer

I am Elizabeth (Libby). I’ve completed my MA and PhD in History at Te Herenga Waka Victoria – University of Wellington. In 2024 I received a Judith Binney Writing Award which I am using to adapt my PhD thesis, ‘Women Contracting in Law c. 1840–1920: Gender and Settler Colonialism in the Courts of Aotearoa New Zealand’, for publication. I have extensive work experience as a researcher, tutor, and teaching assistant. I serve on the editorial collective of Lilith: A Feminist History Journal, and I am also a committee member of the Friends of the Turnbull Library. I’ve worked as PHANZA’s executive assistant for the past three years.

Publications

Elizabeth Bowyer, Still ‘A Dog With a Bad Name’: The Picturesque Atlas of Australasia and literary legal history, New Zealand Journal of Public History, 2024. https://phanza.org.nz/new-zealand-journal-of-public-history/

‘Exercising Legal Personhood: Wives in Contractual Litigation over Moveable Property in Nineteenth-Century New Zealand’, History Australia, August, 1–18.

Taking the Stand: Women as Witnesses in New Zealand’s Colonial Courts, circa 1840–1900’, law&history, Vol. 9, no. 1, 2022, pp.1-28.

‘The poor treatment of sexual violence victims in court runs deep in our history’ The Spinoff, 6 May 2021; https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/06-05-2021/the-poor-treatment-of-sexual-violence-victims-in-court-runs-deep-in-our-history