Reading the Constitution

Overview
Curriculum
Instructor

New! How to read the U.S. Constitution….Thoughtfully

4th Quarter 2024

Starting Date: October 1st

Duration: weekly meetings, October-December

Day of Week: Tuesdays

Time: 9 pm EST | 8 pm Central | 7 pm Mountain | 6 pm Pacific

Duration of session: 1.5 hours
Cost: Quarterly or annual slow reading subscription (access to all courses, plus liberal arts consultations)

Seminar Archon: Jason Happel

Design of Pathway

Join us to read the United States Constitution as a written work, lauded for its political wisdom. We will read the Preamble, all seven Articles, and the Amendments. Setting aside admittedly useful legal and academic theories of interpretation, we begin with the words on the tattered page to notice questions and problems that have invited divergent interpretations for more than two centuries. The only requirement to participate is an attitude of open inquiry.

Reading the Constitution as a citizen, or as anyone who has a personal interest in what it says, is a good way to raise natural questions about it. This includes questions related to the necessities and aspirations of political communities, to justice, or to the practical application of law.

The suggestion here is that to read thoughtfully means asking thoughtful questions about the intended meanings and implications of the text, its denotations and connotations in a political, legal, and social context; and perhaps in a cosmic context as well.

We may discover that reading the Constitution ultimately requires the historical and legal apparatus on which many jurists rely, or the literary theories that academics invent, but, like many great works, the text itself may point to more or less helpful interpretive strategies. That it presents itself to us as law, is not in dispute by those who live under its power — but whether this law of the land is, or becomes, oppressive or liberating depends to some extent on how much those who live with it think about it.’

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David