21st Annual Philip Pro Lecture in Legal History

The Constitutional Bind: 

How Americans Came to Idolize A Document That Fails Them

Aziz Rana

J. Donald Monan, S.J., University Professor of Law & Government, Boston College

Aziz Rana research and teaching center on American constitutional law and political development. In particular, Rana’s work focuses on how shifting notions of race, citizenship, and empire have shaped legal and political identity since the founding of the country.

His first book, "The Two Faces of American Freedom" (Harvard University Press) situates the American experience within the global history of colonialism, examining the intertwined relationship in American constitutional practice between internal accounts of freedom and external projects of power and expansion. His latest book, "The Constitutional Bind: How Americans Came to Idolize a Document that Fails Them" (University of Chicago Press, 2024), explores the modern emergence of constitutional veneration in the twentieth century -- especially against the backdrop of growing American global authority -- and how veneration has influenced the boundaries of popular politics.

Approved for 1 Nevada MCLE Credit

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