Faculty Workshops
Annual Conference
Graduate Workshops

Faculty Workshops

In Philadelphia in 1787, Americans pioneered the creation of written constitutions to empower, guide and limit national governments. Today, most modern regimes have such constitutions. But some do not, and many depart sharply from the American model. In 2012-2013, the Penn DCC program will explore how and why constitutions have been and are being made around the world, seeking to illuminate how constitutionalism can be strengthened in the 21st century.

Is the World Rejecting American Constitutionalism?
Opening Event (Sept. 20, 2012)
Akhil Reed Amar (Law, Yale University), David Armitage (Harvard University), and David Law (Law, Washington University).
See Full Description. Watch video.

"Do Constitutions Matter?"
Tom Ginsburg (Law, University of Chicago)
Read PDF. Watch video.

"Why State Constitutions Contain America's Positive Rights"
Emily Zackin (Hunter College, CUNY)
Discussant: Walter Licht (Penn History)
Published in Looking for Rights in All the Wrong Places (Princeton, 2013)
Watch video.

Condorcet and the French Constitution
Steven Lukes (NYU) and Nadia Urbinati (Columbia):
"Editors' Introduction" to Condorcet: Political Writings (Read PDF)
Nadia Urbinati (Columbia University):
"Condorcet's Democratic Theory of Representative Government"
(Read PDF)

"Transnational Interactions and the Making of Constitutional Rights"
Christopher McCrudden (Queens University, Belfast)
Discussant: William Burke-White (Law, University of Pennsylvania)
Read PDF. Watch video.

"Unconstitutional Constituent Power"
Kim Lane Scheppele (Woodrow WIlson School, Princeton University)
Read PDF.

"Is the United States Constitution Sufficiently Democratic: How Would We Know and Do We Really Care?"
Sanford Levinson (Law, University of Texas)
Discussant: Rick Beeman (History, University of Pennsylvania)
Read PDF. Watch Video.

"Communist Federations"
Valerie Bunce (Cornell University)
Discussant: Peter Holquist (History, University of Pennsylvania)
Read PDF. Watch video.

Sixth Annual DCC Conference

May 3, 2013

PANEL 1: Fall of the Arab Spring? Constitution Making in Egypt
Chair: William Burke-White (Penn Law)
Asli Bali (UCLA Law)
Trudy Rubin (Philadelphia Inquirer)

PANEL 2: Comparative Perspectives: Constitution Making in Modern Africa
Chair: Susanna Wing (Political Science, Haverford College)
Yash Ghai (University of Hong Kong Law School)
Heinz Klug, (University of Wisconsin Law School):
"Constituting the State in Post-Colonial Africa: 50 years of Constitution-Making Towards an African Constitutionalism"  (Read PDF)

PANEL 3: The Iraq Constitution: Processes, Problems, and Prospects
Chair: Ann E. Mayer (Wharton Legal Studies & Businesss Ethics)
Peter W. Galbraith (Vermont State Senate)
Feisal A. R. Istrabadi (Indiana U. Center for the Study of the Middle East)

PANEL 4: Challenges of Integration: Constitution Making in Europe
Chair: Brendan O’Leary, (Penn Political Science)
Brigid Laffan, (Politics & International Relations, University College, Dublin)
Jaime Lluch (DCC Postdoctoral Fellow):
"Constitutional Moments and  the Paradox of Constitutionalism in Multinational Democracies (Spain, 2006-2013)"  (Read PDF)

Graduate Workshops

National Identity and Citizenship: The Formation and contestation of Civic Allegiance in the early U.S. and Korea.

Jonathan W. Wilson (History, Syracuse):
“How to Make an American in the Early Republic: Some Notes on the Limits of State, Structure, and Strife”
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Yumi Lee (Penn English):
“Detention, Repatriation, Humanitarianism: On the Korean War POW in Ha Jin’s War Trash”
Read PDF.

Testing the Parameters of Democracy: Nationalism, Discord, and the Role of Political Speech.

Joanna Kenty (Classical Studies, Penn):
“Freedom and Speech: Oratory and Democracy in Ancient Rome”
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Alison Novak (Culture and Communications, Drexel):
“How [Not] to Caffeinate a Political Group: Parent Post Influence on Conversational Network Structure”
Read PDF.

The Suffering Subject: Violence, Citizenship, and the Law.

Thomas Dichter (Penn English):
“Civil Whiteness: Legitimate Violence and the Literature of Lynching”
View Abstract. Read PDF.

Tina Shrestha (Anthropology, Cornell):
“Asylum Narrations: Documentation, Imagination, and the Ethnography of Citizenship”
Read PDF.

Equality for all Subjects: Deconstructing Gendered Barriers to Civic Participation"

Samah Elhajibrahim (Penn Political Science):
“Citizenship in the Absence of a State and Republican Motherhood in the Absence of a Republic”
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Chelsea Szendi-Schieder (History, Columbia):
“Ruination of the Nation by Co-Eds: Women in Higher Education in the High Growth Period in Japan”
Read PDF.

Constitutional Development and Inequality The Role of Judges and the Paradox of Sovereignty.

Stephan Stohler (Penn Political Science & Law):
“Judicial Behavior and the Politics of Equal Rights: Evidence from South Africa”
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Christina McElderry (Politics, New School):
“Space, Indigenous Sovereignty, and Paradoxes of American Constitutionalism”
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Crime and Insecurity: The Role of Violence and the Construction of Marginal Citizenship.

Zain Lakhani (Penn History):
“’Why Don't You Just Ask?’: Date Rape Debates and the Meaning of ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ in the Antioch College Sexual Offense Prevention Policy, 1985-1994”
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Yanilda Gonzalez (Politics and Social Policy, Princeton):
“Citizenship in an Era of Insecurity: Crime, Violence, and the Implications of Democracy”
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Redefining and Rethinking Democratic Participation

David Bateman (Penn Political Science):
“Redefining the People: Understandings of Political Community and the Politics of the Right to Vote in 19th Century France and the United Kingdom”
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Jingchao Ma (Philosophy, Villanova):
“Rethinking Democracy of Participation and the Desire Not to Appear”
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Education and Reform

Nick Juravich (History, Columbia)
“Opportunity of a Lifetime: Paraprofessionals and the UFT in New York City, 1966-1978”
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Leya Mathew (Penn GSE)
“Negotiating Public Good in 'Zones of Awkward Engagement': Education Reforms in Kerala”
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