Professor Chloë Kennedy receives Leverhulme Trust Grant for new project
Thu 16 January 2025

Professor Chloë Kennedy has been awarded over £372,000 from the Leverhulme Trust for a new research project titled ‘A History of Hurt Feelings and the Law’.
The 4-year project will be led collaboratively with co-investigators Dr Alice Krzanich (University of Aberdeen) and Professor Katie Barclay (Macquarie University) and comprises an interdisciplinary study of legal redress for injured feelings across the modern period (1750-present). It will combine approaches from law, history of emotions, medical history, and legal history, charting how injured feelings have been identified, defined and addressed by courts.
Using Scotland as a case study, the project aims to understand which – and whose – emotions have received legal protection and for what reasons. The project will explore how socially- and culturally-informed ideas of selfhood, wellbeing, dignity, and respect have shaped legal processes and examine how class, race, and gender have affected litigation and legal decision making.
The project will start in May this year and the team will include a Post-doctoral Research Fellow.
Find out more about Professor Chloë Kennedy’s work
Learn more about the Leverhulme Trust