John Fabian Witt
Allen H. Duffy Class of 1960 Professor of Law, Yale Law School
September 17, 2015 — 4:10 PMChevron Auditorium, International House — 2299 Piedmont Avenue
About the Lecture Witt’s Jefferson lecture will explore the subject of how American constitutional law was “reinvented,” as he proposes, during the early twentieth century. Taking up a small cast of characters who self-consciously aimed to disrupt the ideological structures … Continued
Chevron Auditorium, International House - 2299 Piedmont Avenue Berkeley Graduate Lectures [email protected] false MM/DD/YYYYAbout the Lecture
Witt’s Jefferson lecture will explore the subject of how American constitutional law was “reinvented,” as he proposes, during the early twentieth century. Taking up a small cast of characters who self-consciously aimed to disrupt the ideological structures of American law, Witt tells a story of social experiment and constitutional transformation that explains our constitutional past and offers powerful, if sometimes troubling, implications for our constitutional future.
About John Fabian Witt
John Witt is the Allen H. Duffy Class of 1960 Professor of Law at the Yale Law School. Professor Witt’s work has ranged widely over the history of American law from the founding era to the Cold War. He has written about the law and ethics of warfare, about American law in a global context, and about the development of modern American legal institutions. His most recent book Lincoln’s Code: The Laws of War in American History (2012) was awarded the 2013 Bancroft Prize and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His two previous books Patriots and Cosmopolitans: Hidden Histories of American Law (2007) and The Accidental Republic: Crippled Workingmen, Destitute Widows and the Remaking of American Law (2004) have also attained prominence in the recent literature of American historical and legal studies. His writings have appeared in many law journals and in the New York Times, Slate, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post.