Emory Law's 2013 LAWS Annual Conference

This was just brought to my attention today, but I thought I'd share this in case anyone else was interested.

This Saturday, February 16th, is Emory's 2013 LAWS Annual Conference, and the topic is "The Changing Face of Reproductive Privacy."

It's free to attend, but you need to register in advance if you want to attend the lunch and the keynote presentation, which is going to be given by Sarah Weddington, the lead attorney who represented Roe in Roe v. Wade.

http://www.law.emory.edu/academics/conferences/2013-laws-annual-conference.html

Teaching the People Themselves

The past two weeks of reading provided a more complex understanding of American government and the Constitution.  In class, a couple of the current teachers said that this would change how they taught these topics.  As a prospective teacher (in high school), I am wondering how we can best incoporate Origianl Meanings and The People Themselves in the classroom.  Are these in depth discussions best suited for the college classroom?

The People Themselves

I just want to make sure that I understand the concept and definition of "Popular Constitutionalism."  As I understand it, it is the concept that the people, either directly or through their elected legislatures, have the final authority to interpret the constitutional or Fundemental law and not the courts.  Also the term elected legislatures could mean either federal or state bodies which would open the door to state nullification.  This of course is the opposite of Judicial Review.  Am I on the right track?
Jim

The People Themselves

I'm just wondering if I'm reading The People Themselves correctly- Kramer is arguing within his history of judicial review and popular constitutionalism that the people have given up their power of being the ultimate interpreters/enforcers of the Constitution as the courts have gained that power (judicial supremacy)?

Question: Federalism and Original Meaning

I thought it might be good to interject with a question. Federalism and judicial review are the two "great questions" of American constitutionalism. How did we get the supremacy clause? How are the boundaries between the state and the federal government supposed to be regulated? How did the Federalists' defense of the finished product differ from the Convention discussions?

Jack Rakove Interview

This is an interesting interview with Dr. Rakove.  He discusses what he believes are the most important contributions Original Meanings makes to the field.

Enjoy!

http://www.earlyamerica.com/review/1998/rakove.html

Akil Reed Amar

As people are working through our assigned readings this week I would suggest looking at Amar's book listed under the Further Readings.  I've used this text for several papers and found Amar's explanations and definitions to be useful.  The book is widely available at libraries, including the Atlanta-Fulton libraries (and if you don't live in Fulton county you can still use the system as a GSU student).  I've also found a link for a PDF of a followup called "America's Unwritten Constitution" from USC's website.
 http://lawweb.usc.edu/who/faculty/workshops/documents/Amarspaper.pdf

Original Meanings

I have just read "Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution" for a previous class so my pre-read of this book has already been done. However I think the title is very indicative of some Rakove's goal for this book. It implies that there is more than a single possible interpretation of the Constitution. The second part of the title seems to also express some struggle intellectually that might (we all know there was) have occurred in the process so to speak, in the writing of the Constitution.  Thoughts?

To get this all started I had a question concerning a term found in the reading, which also popped up in readings for Dr. Steffen's seminar on Revolutionary America.  Does anyone have a good understanding of "parvenu?"  Does this term have any significance for class or cullture in colonial Virginia specifically?

Instructions for Posting

Welcome to Constitutional Studies--a blog for HIST 8035 students. This blog will be a source of ongoing communication for the class. It is designed to highlight conversations on our weekly reading, on research questions that we have, and on contemporary constitutional issues that require historical perspective.

There are a simple set of rules that we will use for posting, included below.

Rule 1: you may post on discussion questions for next week's reading, or you may share extra readings or other ideas connected with the next week's topic. OR, you may post links to websites of interest, books or articles, or other resources that others in the class may find helpful. Especially of interest are links to examples of the uses of history in the modern day world.
Rule 2: you should comment early and often on posts. All posts should be invitations to discussion.

Rule 3: debates are permitted. Rules of courtesy and professionalism apply. As administrator, I will remove any and all inappropriate posts.

Rule 4: you MUST add labels to all of your posts, so that we can find them and use them later. You should add a LABEL for any author you are referencing (make sure you do the last name, first name format for this kind of posting, e.g.: Morgan, Edmund), as well as something to identify the topic or period. Try to match tags already in existence, and if one does not exist, then go ahead and create it.

Rule 5: more rules will be added as we go along.

Happy blogging!