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Date: | Tue, 1 Mar 2011 11:43:07 -0500 |
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Dr. Saul Cornell will be giving VCU's first Society of the Cincinnati Lecture on
Wednesday, April 20th, at 4 pm in Richmond Salons I and II in the VCU
Student Center. Please feel free to pass this information along to anyone who
might be interested. Dr. Cornell is the Paul and Diane Guenther Chair of
American History at Fordham University and a Senior Research Fellow at Yale
University. He is the author or co-author of at least five books, 32 articles,
and dozens of amicus briefs, including to the Supreme Court. He has been a
guest on Newshour and National Public Radio, and has given lectures at
universities and law schools across the country.
Dr. Cornell will be lecturing on "Will the Real Founding Fathers Please Stand
Up: The Original Debate over how to Interpret the Constitution" and provides
this description of the lecture:
"Modern Americans are basically divided over how to interpret the
Constitution. About half of the people polled on this question believe that
judges ought to seek the original intent or understanding of the Founders.
The opposing view, which also commands broad respect, asserts that the
Constitution ought to be interpreted as a living document. Only one group in
America seems resolutely against originalism—historians. Although it may
seem ironic that historians, a profession devoted to understanding the past,
would oppose originalism, this conundrum seems less puzzling if one looks
closely at the methods used by historians and those employed by originalists.
Indeed, the greatest irony of all may well be that a belief in a living
constitution was itself one of the original understandings of how the
Constitution ought to be interpreted."
This lecture is funded by the Society of the Cincinnati. It is free and open to
the public.
***************************
Sarah Meacham, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of History
Virginia Commonwealth University
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