Faculty Profile

Kathryn Blair is a Research Fellow at BYU Law School. Her research interests include law and empire, sovereignty, citizenship, and the international system. Kathryn received her Ph.D. in History from Yale University in December 2024. Her dissertation, “A Jurisprudence of Loyalty: Empire, Treason, and Sovereignty in Colonial Natal, 1899–1909,” considers a series of treason trials that arose from the South African War and the Bambatha Rebellion in British colonial Natal, now a part of South Africa. Her project asks how the Special Court, created in 1900 and again in 1908, and the treason trials decided by it, can be used to assess circulating concepts of sovereignty, the colonial state, allegiance and loyalty in colonial Natal.

Prior to Yale, Kathryn worked as an attorney with the law firm Hogan Lovells in Washington D.C. and then with Amazon.com in Seattle, WA, where her practice focused on international trade and investment law. She received her J.D. from Stanford Law School, an M.A. in Russian, Eastern European, and Eurasian Studies from Stanford University, and a B.A. in History from Stanford University.