Five recent books on the Constitution

For the past 10 years, I have been teaching a seminar at Georgetown entitled, Recent Books on the Constitution, in which the students spend two weeks reading each of 5-6 books, which I have selected because it is a book I would like to read and/or an author I would like to meet. In the second week, the author visits the class to discuss the book nnd react to the written student critiques. The authors routinely express how impressed they are with the quality of the Georgetown student criticisms, which consistently impress me as well. I love how the students collectively are able to deconstruct every book (except when the deconstruct mine).

Four years ago, Justice Scalia visited the class to discuss his book, On Reading Law. Other previous guest authors are a "Who's Who" of con law professors: Alex Aleinikoff, Akhil Amar, Robert Bennett, David Bernstein, Frank Buckley, Laura Donohue, Garrett Epps, Jim Fleming, Alison LaCroix, Dan Farber, Elizabeth Price Foley, Christopher Fritz, Michael Gerhardt, Abner Greene, Michael Greve, Steve Griffin, Stephen Gardbaum, Philip Hamburger, Thomas Healy, John Inazu, Sandy Levinson, Gerard Magliocca, Earl Maltz, John McGinnis, Clark Neily, Mike Paulsen, Jeff Powell, Kim Roosevelt, Eric Segall, Mike Seidman, Larry Solum, Ilya Somin, Brad Snyder, David Strauss, Brian Tamanaha, Alex Tsesis, Mark Tushnet, and John Yoo. Historian Michael Vorenberg, political scientists Sonu Bedi, Mark Graber, Carson Holloway, Gary McDowell, Jeremy Rabkin, George Thomas, and Keith Whittington, economist Thomas Leonard, and philosopher Tara Smith have also discussed their recent books, as has journalist Damon Root. (Apologies to anyone I may have omitted.)

I am pleased to announce that the following authors have agreed to come to Georgetown in the fall to discuss their books:

• Barry Friedman, Unwarranted: Policing Without Permission (2017)
• Bruce Frohnen, Constitutional Morality and the Rise of Quasi Law (2016)
• Geoffrey Stone, Sex and the Constitution (2017)
• Suja Thomas, The Missing American Jury (2016)
• Thomas West, The Political Theory of the American Founding: Natural Rights, Public Policy, and the Moral Conditions of Freedom (2017)

I wish I had taken to announcing this list every year, but we live and we learn.