The Harvard Law School Library staff invite you to attend a book talk and panel discussion in celebration of Visiting Professor Sanford Levinson’s recently published book, An Argument Open to All: Reading “The Federalist” in the 21st Century (Yale U. Press).
Wednesday, December 2, 2015 at noon.
Harvard Law School Room WCC 2019 Milstein East B/C (Directions)
1585 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge
Sanford Levinson, who holds the W. St. John Garwood and W. St. John Garwood, Jr. Centennial Chair in Law, joined the University of Texas Law School in 1980. Previously a member of the Department of Politics at Princeton University, he is also a Professor in the Department of Government at the University of Texas. The author of over 350 articles and book reviews in professional and popular journals–and a regular contributor to the popular blog Balkinization–Levinson is also the author of four books: Constitutional Faith (1988, winner of the Scribes Award); Written in Stone: Public Monuments in Changing Societies (1998); Wrestling With Diversity (2003); and, most recently, Our Undemocratic Constitution: Where the Constitution Goes Wrong (and How We the People Can Correct It)(2006); and, most recently, Framed: America’s 51 Constitutions and the Crisis of Governance (2012). Edited or co-edited books include a leading constitutional law casebook, Processes of Constitutional Decisionmaking (5th ed. 2006, with Paul Brest, Jack Balkin, Akhil Amar, and Reva Siegel); Reading Law and Literature: A Hermeneutic Reader (1988, with Steven Mallioux); Responding to Imperfection: The Theory and Practice of Constitutional Amendment (1995); Constitutional Stupidities, Constitutional Tragedies (1998, with William Eskridge); Legal Canons (2000, with Jack Balkin); The Louisiana Purchase and American Expansion (2005, with Batholomew Sparrow); and Torture: A Collection (2004, revised paperback edition, 2006), which includes reflections on the morality, law, and politics of torture from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. He received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Law and Courts Section of the American Political Science Association in 2010. He has been a visiting faculty member of the Boston University, Georgetown, Harvard, New York University, and Yale law schools in the United States and has taught abroad in programs of law in London; Paris; Jerusalem; Auckland, New Zealand; and Melbourne, Australia.
Panelists:
Jill Lepore, David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of American History and Harvard College Professor
Eric Nelson, Robert M. Beren Professor of Government, Harvard University
Adrian Vermeule, John H. Watson, Jr. Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
More about An Argument Open to All:
“In An Argument Open to All, renowned legal scholar Sanford Levinson takes a novel approach to what is perhaps America’s most famous political tract. Rather than concern himself with the authors as historical figures, or how The Federalist helps us understand the original intent of the framers of the Constitution, Levinson examines each essay for the political wisdom it can offer us today. In eighty-five short essays, each keyed to a different essay in The Federalist, he considers such questions as whether present generations can rethink their constitutional arrangements; how much effort we should exert to preserve America’s traditional culture; and whether The Federalist’s arguments even suggest the desirability of world government.” — Yale U. Press
“Sanford Levinson has one of the most original minds in the American legal community, and it is on full display in this wonderful new book.”— Alan Wolfe, Boston College
“Levinson’s brilliant short essays do much more than bring extraordinary insight to one of our most important Founding documents. They show how the questions posed by The Federalist are timeless, global and as compelling today as they were when written. Levinson gives more relevance to The Federalist than it has had since 1788. Fascinating and important.”— Elliot Gerson, The Aspen Institute
“In his new examination of the Federalist Papers, Levinson lays out a powerful case for believing that the Founders, far from thinking government should be constrained, were focused instead on how to give it sufficient power to function effectively. Agree with him or not, Levinson’s is a brilliant and well-constructed brief for rethinking what our Founders were trying to say.”— Former Congressman Mickey Edwards, author of “The Parties versus the People: How to Turn Republicans and Democrats into Americans”