Spring 2025
In this course, students will read six recent books on the Constitution of the United States, on topics ranging from constitutional history and methodology to foreign affairs and federalism. The students spend two weeks per book. Every second week, the author of the book will meet with the students in a workshop format, present the book, and take questions from the students and have a general discussion. The students will write short reflection papers each week that will be shared with the authors. Students in Spring 2025 will read: Alison LaCroix (Chicago), The Interbellum Constitution: Union, Commerce, and Slavery in an Age of Federalisms; Kermit Roosevelt III (Penn), The Nation That Never Was: Reconstructing America’s Story; Curtis Bradley (Chicago), Historical Gloss and Foreign Affairs: Constitutional Authority in Practice; Jack Balkin (Yale), Memory and Authority: The Use of History in Constitutional Interpretation; and Aziz Rana (Boston College), The Constitutional Bind: How Americans Came to Idolize a Document that Fails Them.
