June 5-11, 2016

Professors: Akhil Reed Amar and John Fabian Witt

Join two of Yale’s most distinguished scholars – both with appointments in Yale College departments as well as Yale Law School – in an entirely new and innovative look at the Civil War:  as the great divide that – perhaps – created a new nation.  We will read, discuss, and debate theories of Freedom as expressed in our laws, but also in speeches and actions.  We will study slavery defenders, including John C. Calhoun (Class of 1804); a “Constitutional Biography of Slavery;” Dred Scott’s America; the Civil War as a Modern War, a catastrophe that gave rise to the hope and failure of Reconstruction and the nation we know; and so much more.  Click to learn more…