 | Name | File Type | Date Modified |
 | Syllabus (139.5Kb) | Microsoft Word | W 09-08-04 10:44:03 AM |
| | | NOTE CHANGES TO SESSION 14B (IRAQ SESSION)! THERE ARE TWO NEW ENTRIES, BOTH AVAILABLE ON LINE. |
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 | World Constitutions in English | URL | M 10-11-04 01:49:09 PM |
| World Constitutions in English, bis | URL | M 10-11-04 01:49:57 PM |
| Yet another site for world constitutions in English | URL | M 10-11-04 01:50:49 PM |
 | Responses Week 1  | Folder | W 12-08-04 05:11:29 PM |
| | | Post responses here. There will be a new drop folder each week. Remember you must post 5 times over the course of the term, 10 if you are a 5410 student. |
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| Overarching Questions (23.5Kb) | Microsoft Word | Tu 09-07-04 12:43:41 PM |
| | | Here is a list of questions to consider this semester (and beyond!). They should give you some sense of what to look for as you do the readings, and might even give you ideas for paper topics. |
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| Responses Week 2 | Folder | W 12-08-04 05:11:36 PM |
| What, Who, How... (22.5Kb) | Microsoft Word | Tu 09-14-04 12:55:49 PM |
| | | A framework for approaching our country cases. |
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| Responses Week 3 | Folder | W 12-08-04 05:11:44 PM |
| Responses Week 4 | Folder | W 12-08-04 05:11:50 PM |
 | Afghanistan: Pessimistic View (118.3Kb) | Acrobat PDF | Th 09-23-04 09:11:39 AM |
| | | NYT Op-Ed from September 23. Read now (together with the optimistic view below), and keep in mind for our last unit. |
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| Afghanistan: Optimistic View (116Kb) | Acrobat PDF | Th 09-23-04 09:12:00 AM |
| | | NYT Op-Ed from September 23. Read now (together with the pessimistic view above), and keep in mind for our last unit. |
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| Who Should Decide? | URL | W 09-29-04 03:27:52 PM |
| | | Brad Nelson sent the link for this article on a Justice Scalia speech, and it relates to our discussion on Tuesday. Do you agree with Scalia? Why or why not? |
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| Responses Week 5 | Folder | W 12-08-04 05:11:57 PM |
| Some issues to consider (21Kb) | Microsoft Word | W 10-06-04 09:55:15 AM |
| | | As we move into our comparative discussion, here are some issues, most which were raised in the Griffin book, to think about.... |
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| Atlantic Monthly Article (31.5Kb) | Microsoft Word | W 10-06-04 10:00:10 AM |
| | | Thanks to Brad Nelson for converting this article into a Word file for the class. Feel free to write a post agreeing or disagreeing with Wittes's argument. |
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| Per pupil funding gap increases (91.2Kb) | Acrobat PDF | W 10-06-04 10:25:31 AM |
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| President Schwarzenegger?? (94.2Kb) | Acrobat PDF | W 10-06-04 10:24:34 AM |
| | | (Did I spell that right??) Interesting piece on a recent move in the Senate to amend one of the clearer parts of the Constitution.... |
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| Roy Moore loses at Supreme Court | URL | M 10-11-04 12:30:11 PM |
| | | Roy Moore, the defiant Alabama Supreme Court Justice who was removed from office for refusing to comply with federal court rulings that his Ten Commandments monument in the court building was illegal, lost his final appeal to SCOTUS. |
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| Responses Week 6 | Folder | W 12-08-04 05:12:04 PM |
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 | Presidential Debate Answers | | M 10-11-04 12:37:43 PM |
| | | Anyone care to comment on the answers Bush and Kerry gave to the question asked on Supreme Court nominations at Friday's "town meeting" debate? You can put your comments in the Week 6 folder. |
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| Law Review Analysis of Head Scarf Decision | URL | M 10-11-04 01:34:31 PM |
| | | For those of you interested in the head scarf debate in Germany and other countries, here's a link to a recent law review article on the subject. This reading is not required. |
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| News on Head Scarf Debate | | W 10-13-04 12:23:48 PM |
| | | From the NYT, 10/12/04: A ban on Muslim teachers wearing head scarves in public schools must also apply to Christian nuns, the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig ruled. The court said a law passed this year in the southwestern state of Baden-Wurttemberg was unfair because it was being applied solely to Muslim women who teach. "There can be no exception," the court said, for "any form of religiously motivated clothing." Nuns in the predominantly Roman Catholic state, who often teach in the public schools, will now have to remove their habits before entering the classroom. Legislators have said they will fight the ruling. (Victor Homola, NYT) |
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| And in Italy, too... (97.4Kb) | Acrobat PDF | F 10-15-04 12:14:52 PM |
| | | Article from the NYT 10/15/04 on yet another furor over an Islamic woman's head scarf, this time in Italy. |
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| Reponses Week 7 | Folder | W 12-08-04 05:12:11 PM |
| South African Ambassador to U.S. Talk | URL | F 10-22-04 04:10:11 PM |
| | | Here's a link with complete info. The talk is at 6 pm, but reception starts at 5:30. You have to pay to get in: $10. |
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| Mid-term Exam Study Sheet (26.5Kb) | Microsoft Word | Th 10-21-04 05:15:01 PM |
| franceheadscarf1 (110Kb) | Acrobat PDF | F 10-22-04 04:08:29 PM |
| | | Here is what's happening with the French law banning religious garb... |
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| franceheadscarf2 (88.2Kb) | Acrobat PDF | F 10-22-04 04:09:25 PM |
| | | And now the courts are intervening... |
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| Responses Week 8 | Folder | W 12-08-04 05:12:18 PM |
| Popular constitutionalism (123.5Kb) | Acrobat PDF | Tu 10-26-04 10:00:15 AM |
| | | Here's a review (by Harvard Law's Laurence Tribe) of a new book by the dean of the Stanford Law School, Larry Kramer. Kramer's book builds a case against judicial review and for constitutional interpretation by the people and/or their representatives. This would be great material for a final paper, and you might even integrate it into an essay question on the mid-term. |
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| Article on Iraq | URL | Th 10-28-04 01:15:07 PM |
| | | This article, "Baghdad Year Zero," was published in the September 2004 issue of Harper's Magazine. While the analysis is not dispassionate (the author clearly has no love for neoliberalism), the piece offers some important food for thought on the matter of how to (and not to) go about constructing a constitutional democracy. If you put it in print-friendly form, it comes out to 21 pages. It gets particularly pertinent starting on about page 11. |
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| Responses Week 9 | Folder | W 12-08-04 05:12:26 PM |
| Two Nations Under God (93.2Kb) | Acrobat PDF | F 11-05-04 02:31:23 PM |
| | | Thomas Friedman Op-Ed from the NYT, 11/4/04. Note what he says about this election feeling like it wasn't about electing a president; it was about rewriting the Constitution.... |
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| The Anti-Enlightenment?? (112.8Kb) | Acrobat PDF | F 11-05-04 02:31:38 PM |
| | | This may be an over-statement, but I think he has a point about the need to defend liberalism (with a little 'l'...the philosophy upon which this country was founded). As Jefferson said, "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." |
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| The Value-Vote Myth (92Kb) | Acrobat PDF | M 11-08-04 11:23:34 AM |
| | | David Brooks is a (moderate) conservative columnist for the NYT.
Here he argues that Liberals are over-reacting; that there is no values divide in the U.S. |
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| A Saner Approach to the Moral Values Debate? (93.7Kb) | Acrobat PDF | M 11-08-04 11:30:38 AM |
| | | This is from Peter Steinfels's regular column, "Beliefs," in the Saturday NYT. Can efforts to "enlarge the framework of the discussion" work? Under what conditions might we be able to have an "honest discussion of the moral stances dividing Americans?" |
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| Voting Without the Facts (95.9Kb) | Acrobat PDF | M 11-08-04 11:50:30 AM |
| | | OK, last one for now... This piece, by Bob Herbert 11/8/04, seems important because it goes beyond the issue of religious belief and raises the broader matter of access and openness to facts/evidence that might challenge beliefs of any kind. To me, this is what Gary Wills was getting at in his piece on the death of the Enlightenment. It's not religion that's the problem AT ALL; religion can be mobilized for a variety of ends, and science and religion are not necessarily incompatible. The real problem is when citizens of a democracy stop being open to thinking, to listening to and adjusting their views in light of "inconvenient facts," and instead make political decisions based on ideological orthodoxy, gut feeling, or wishful thinking. That, in my mind, is what is really scary, regardless of the role religion might take in the coming years. |
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| Responses Week 10 | Folder | W 12-08-04 05:12:34 PM |
| Why Moderates for Bush? | | Th 11-11-04 10:36:39 AM |
| | | I've been mulling over the two pieces that Crystal posted in the Week 10 folder. On the one hand, they made me think, "Gee, maybe we Democrats are overreacting to the outcome of this election. The stats do seem to support the point that voters are not moving in droves to the far Right. And my students who voted for Bush sure seem reasonable." On the other hand, though, I have to wonder why so many moderates threw their support behind a president who has, in just about every possible area, pursued a quite radical, uncompromising, and, in some cases, downright reckless (e.g., Iraq, deficit) policy agenda and leadership style. I think for moderate Democrats like myself, the alarm comes at the fact that so many allegedly "moderate" Republicans deemed it riskier/less in their interest to vote for Kerry (who, no matter how liberal he he has been as a senator, would have been forced to govern in a centrist manner by the Republican Congress) than to hand Bush, who has a proven radical record and has long courted the far Right in the "fire engine red states," virtually unchecked power. I think one could be forgiven for worrying that something quite other than a reasoned assessment based on the evidence (in this case, what Bush et al. did in their first term) was going on in the electorate.... |
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| Responses Week 11 | Folder | W 12-08-04 05:12:42 PM |
| Russia Articles | Folder | W 11-17-04 10:39:57 AM |
| Responses Week 12 | Folder | W 12-08-04 05:12:51 PM |
| HAPPY THANKSGIVING | | Tu 11-23-04 04:33:57 PM |
| | | You are free to post in Week 12 folder over the break, but you sure aren't expected to!
Get some R and R!! |
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| Russia Moves to "Clean Up" TV (73.2Kb) | Acrobat PDF | Su 11-28-04 02:59:10 PM |
| | | Yet another troubling move to concentrate power in Russia. (I have to admit, though, because of the way the article is framed, I couldn't help but think of the Simpsons episode where Marge leads a crusade against the Itchy and Scratchy show.) |
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| South Africa in the News | Folder | Su 11-28-04 02:04:14 PM |
| New Yorker Article on Veiling in France (89.5Kb) | Microsoft Word | Su 11-28-04 03:55:54 PM |
| | | Also available via Lexis-Nexis. Note: it's not short, but it is very interesting. Feel free to post a response to this, if you want. |
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| Responses Week 13 | Folder | W 12-08-04 05:12:59 PM |
| "Courting Disaster" (114.1Kb) | Acrobat PDF | M 12-06-04 11:23:43 AM |
| | | This piece appeared in the NYT magazine yesterday, 12/5/04, and contains an increasingly common critique of the international "judicial turn." |
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| Responses Week 14 | Folder | W 12-08-04 05:13:07 PM |
| Approaching civil war in Iraq? (100.6Kb) | Acrobat PDF | M 12-06-04 11:25:35 AM |
| | | To consider as we move into our discussion of Iraq on Thursday. |
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| Islamic Democracy for Iraq? (131.1Kb) | Acrobat PDF | M 12-06-04 11:26:47 AM |
| | | Another piece from the NYT magazine of 12/5/04 to add to our discussion on Iraq. |
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| Final Response Folder | Folder | W 12-08-04 05:13:46 PM |
| | | All previous folders are now closed. Put your final posts (at this point, no more than two will be accepted) in this folder. Thanks for your great contributions throughout the semester! |
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| FINAL PAPERS | | W 12-08-04 05:14:47 PM |
| | | Final papers are due in hard copy in my office (1337B Social Sciences) by NOON on Friday, December 17th. |
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| Canadian Court Clears Same-Sex Marriage (95.5Kb) | Acrobat PDF | F 12-10-04 10:14:16 AM |
| | | Though we didn't discuss Canada in this class, I thought you guys might be interested in how the issue has been handled and is playing out in our neighbor to the north (ay?). |
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