Courses

    This seminar will study five or six recent scholarly books about constitutional theory and history. The class will spend two weeks on each book. For the second session on each book, the author may visit the class in person to discuss the work. Books being considered for Spring 2010 include Steven Calabresi & Christopher Yoo, The Unitary Executive: Presidential Power from Washington to Bush (Yale, 2008), Garrett Epps, Democracy Reborn: The Fourteenth Amendment and the Fight for Equal Rights in Post-Civil War America (Holt Paperbacks 2007), H. Jefferson Powell, Constitutional Conscience: The Moral Dimension of Judicial Decision (Chicago 2008), Edward A. Purcell, Originalism, Federalism, and the American Constitutional Enterprise: A Historical Inquiry (Yale 2007), and Cass Sunstein, A Constitution of Many Minds: Why the Founding Document Doesn’t Mean What It Meant Before (Princeton, 2009). Professor Barnett’s Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty (Princeton, 2004) or a new work-in-progress may be also be assigned. Final book selections will be made in the Fall depending on author availability.

Grades will be based on class participation and a two-three page “thought paper” for each book. In addition, students will submit a one-page summary of the reading — graded pass fail — for the first week’s discussion of each book. All papers must be submitted via Coursewares by Monday at 3:00 p.m. and will be made available to the other students. Grades for papers submitted late will be lowered.