Course | Columbia Law School

This seminar seeks to unpack ongoing debates over competing theoretical approaches to interpretation of constitutional text and to adjudication of constitutional controversies. We will discuss the relevance of original intentions and understandings to present-day interpretation, whether and how constitutions present unique interpretive challenges, and whether constitutional fidelity is either possible or desirable. Our primary but non-exclusive focus will be judicial interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. Authors will include Antonin Scalia, Ronald Dworkin, Charles Black, John Hart Ely, Bruce Ackerman, Philip Bobbitt and others.