What the Constitution Means to Us 2024

September 10, 2024 | 听5:00 - 7:00 PM |听Gasson 100 | Please to attend | Hybrid Event (link to follow)

we the people

Since the founding era of the United States, the American Constitution has been central to our public life. It has inspired hope, and it has provoked despair. It has remained in place, as few other national constitutions have. Yet it has also repeatedly been updated and amended, and some today think it needs to change again. During an election season when its basic meaning seems more contested than ever, how should we look at the Constitution today?听听

To engage this urgent question, the Clough Center is delighted to sponsor its third annual 鈥淲hat the Constitution Means to Us.鈥 Inspired by听, and timed to coincide with Constitution and Citizenship Day, this event provides the md传媒国产剧 College community with an opportunity to reflect on America鈥檚 founding document.听听

In addition to showcasing contributions from select students and faculty, this year鈥檚 celebration will feature special guest ,听New York Times-bestselling author with a flare for comedy and 鈥渋mmersion journalism.鈥 In conversation with Founders Professor of Law,听Mary Bilder, Jacobs will share insights (and hilarious anecdotes) from his most recent work,听听(2024). Please join us for a rich evening of conversation, debate, and reflection, followed by a lively reception.听

Cosponsored by the听The Schiller Institute for Integrated Science and Society.


Schedule and Registration

Tuesday, September 10, 2024 | 听5:00-7:00 PM | Gasson 100 |


5:00pm: Welcome

5:10pm: Faculty & Student Remarks

6:15pm: Community Discussion

6:30pm: Reception

Speakers

Marsin Alshamary

Prof. Marsin Alshamary (Political Science)

Marsin Alshamary is a scholar of Middle Eastern politics, with a primary focus on religious institutions, civil society, and protest movements. She is currently working on a book manuscript titled: A Century of the Iraqi Hawza: How Clerics Shaped Protests and Politics in Modern Day Iraq, which explores the historical and contemporary interactions between the Shi鈥檃 religious establishment and protest movements. Her research has been published in academic journals, including The Journal of Democracy, and she has provided commentary to various media outlets such as Al Jazeera and BBC. She has also consulted for organizations like the United Nations and the World Bank. As an educator, she teaches courses on religion and the state in the Middle East, state building and revolution in the Middle East, and civil society and democracy. She holds a doctorate in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and she is currently a faculty associate in the Islamic Civilization and Societies Program at md传媒国产剧 College.


March 11, 2022 -- Mary Bilder, md传媒国产剧 College Law School Professor, and Founders Chair. Photographed in regards to her new publication, "Female Genius: Eliza Harriot and George Washington at the Dawn of the Constitution."

Prof. Mary Sarah Bilder (Law School)

Mary Sarah Bilder听teaches at md传媒国产剧 College Law School in the areas of property, trusts and estates, and American legal and constitutional history. Her recent scholarship focuses on the early history of the Constitution: the concept of a Framing Generation, Native Nations and the 1787 Constitution, the early constitutional status of women, written constitutionalism as a new genre, James Madison's Notes of the Convention, the history of judicial review, and colonial and founding era constitutionalism. Bilder is the author of听听(Harvard University Press, 2008) and听听(Harvard University Press, 2017). Her most recent book,听听(University of Virginia Press, 2022), is based on the life and constitutional influence of Elizabeth Harriot Barons O'Connor, a female lecturer and educator in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787. Bilder received her B.A. in English from the University of Wisconsin Madison, her J.D. from Harvard University, and her A.M. in History and Ph.D. from Harvard University in the history of American civilization/American studies. She was a law clerk to the Hon. Francis Murnaghan, Jr., U.S. Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.


Fernando Bizzarro

Prof. Fernando Bizzarro (Political Science)

Fernando Bizzarro is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at md传媒国产剧 College, whose work explores the intricate nature, underlying causes, and far-reaching consequences of democracy and political parties. His current research explores the impact of economic inequality on political representation, the political foundations of inclusive economic growth, and the factors contributing to democratic stagnation in Latin America. Employing a combination of observational and experimental empirical strategies, Bizzarro examines both global and local questions concerning the functioning of democratic institutions. His overarching goal is to empower citizens and scholars worldwide with insights that not only enhance their understanding of democratic processes but also pave the way for expanding their welfare and upholding their dignity.听


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A.J. Jacobs, Author and Podcaster听

听is an author, podcaster and human guinea pig. He has written four New York Times bestsellers that combine memoir, science, humor and a dash of self-help. His most recent book is听听(2024), in which he tries to understand our nation鈥檚 primary document by adopting the mindset and lifestyle of our Founding Fathers. The result is 鈥渇ascinating and necessary鈥 (Booklist) and 鈥渕arvelously witty and wise鈥 (Kirkus). Other books include听,听, and. He has told several Moth stories, and given several TED talks that have amassed over 10 million views.听

He hosts the 鈥淭he Puzzler With A.J. Jacobs,鈥 a daily podcast produced by iHeart media, in which he gives short, audio-friendly puzzles to celebrity guests. He was the answer to 1 Down in the March 8, 2014 New York Times crossword puzzle.听


August 29, 2022 -- Min Song, faculty member and Chairperson of the English Department at md传媒国产剧 College's Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences.

Prof. Min Hyoung Song (English)

Min Hyoung Song is the chair of the BC English Department and a professor of English. He is the author of three books, most recently Climate Lyricism (Duke University Press 2022), which received the Ecocritical Book Prize from the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment. His second book The Children of 1965: On Writing and Not Writing as an Asian American won several prizes, including the Alpha Sigma Nu award and and the Literary Criticism Book Prize of the Association for Asian American Studies. He also general co-edited the four-volume series Asian American Literature in Transition (Cambridge University Press 2021) and co-edited the volume Cambridge History of Asian American Literature (Cambridge University Press 2015). He is the author of numerous journal articles and book chapters in edited volumes, and has also published essays in The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Chicago Review of Books, Public Books, The Margins, and The Washington Post.


Prof. Martin Summers (History) photographed in the STM Library on the Brighton Campus for use in a story on racism in the fall 2020 issue of BCM.

Prof. Martin Summers (History)

Martin Summers is Professor of History and African and African Diaspora Studies at md传媒国产剧 College. He has particular research and teaching interests in race, gender, sexuality, and medicine. He is the author of Manliness and Its Discontents: The Black Middle Class and the Transformation of Masculinity, 1900 鈥 1930 (2004) and the coeditor of Precarious Prescriptions: Contested Histories of Race and Health in North America (2014). Summers鈥檚 research has been supported by the Ford Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and the National Humanities Center. His most recent book, Madness in the City of Magnificent Intentions: A History of Race and Mental Illness in the Nation鈥檚 Capital (2019), received the Cheiron Society鈥檚 prize for outstanding monograph in the history of behavioral and social sciences. Summers is currently at work on a book, Inner City Blues: African American Mental Health and the 鈥淯rban Crisis鈥 in Twentieth-Century Chicago, which examines how social scientists, psychiatrists and psychiatric social workers, government officials, and community activists understood the relationship between urbanization and mental illness and consequently sought to address the mental health care needs of African Americans in so-called ghettoes.


Campus Map and Parking

Parking is available at the nearby Beacon Street and Commonwealth Avenue Garages.

md传媒国产剧 College is also accessible via public transportation (MBTA B Line - md传媒国产剧 College).

Directions, Maps, and Parking

Visitor Parking Information

md传媒国产剧 College strongly encourages conference participants to receive the COVID-19 vaccination before attending events on campus.