Constitution Day: What Should we Commemorate?
A talk in honor of Constitution Day will be held on Thursday, Sept 15. This event, sponsored by the Tocqueville Program for Inquiry into the Place of Religion in American Public Life, the Jack Miller Center, and the Potenziani Program of Constitutional Studies, will feature Sotirios Barber, Professor of Political Science at Notre Dame. Professor Barber will argue that the founding act should be distinguished from its product, the Constitution, and that we should commemorate the former instead of celebrating the latter. He will then explore the implication of this thesis for the conduct of constitutional studies at Notre Dame. Constitutional studies is a new subfield in Notre Dame’s department of political science.
At a time when debates regarding the Constitution have become a part of mainstream American political life, this talk will be of interest to specialists and the general public alike. Professor Barber has published extensively in constitutional theory, and has held fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Council of Learned Societies. His present projects include books on the theories of American federalism and the concept of constitutional failure.