{"title":"Progressive Originalism and the New Canon Wars","authors":"Almas Khan","doi":"10.1093/alh/ajae074","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"This essay responds to Geoffrey Kirsch’s review essay “What’s Past is Prologue: Democracy in the Age of Originalism” by evaluating how the three texts Kirsch reviews—Kermit Roosevelt, III’s The Nation That Never Was: Reconstructing America’s Story (2022), Cass R. Sunstein’s How to Interpret the Constitution (2023), and D. Berton Emerson and Gregory Laski’s edited collection Democracies in America: Keywords for the Nineteenth Century and Today (2023)—engage with progressive originalism. Drawing inspiration from civil rights activists including Frederick Douglass, progressive originalists seek to recast an ostensibly conservative method of constitutional interpretation grounded in what the “founding fathers” or a historical public thought or intended. Roosevelt’s and Sunstein’s books reveal the potential and limits of both progressive originalism and insular disciplinary conversations about constitutional interpretation. Contrastingly, the multidisciplinary Democracies in America has a more expansive conception of whose voices should matter when interpreting the Constitution through a progressive originalist lens. A comparative analysis of the three books also demonstrates the value of literature and literary historians in an age characterized by the ascendancy of historical approaches to constitutional interpretation and a revival of the “canon wars.”","PeriodicalId":45821,"journal":{"name":"AMERICAN LITERARY HISTORY","volume":"41 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6000,"publicationDate":"2024-08-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"AMERICAN LITERARY HISTORY","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1093/alh/ajae074","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LITERATURE, AMERICAN","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This essay responds to Geoffrey Kirsch’s review essay “What’s Past is Prologue: Democracy in the Age of Originalism” by evaluating how the three texts Kirsch reviews—Kermit Roosevelt, III’s The Nation That Never Was: Reconstructing America’s Story (2022), Cass R. Sunstein’s How to Interpret the Constitution (2023), and D. Berton Emerson and Gregory Laski’s edited collection Democracies in America: Keywords for the Nineteenth Century and Today (2023)—engage with progressive originalism. Drawing inspiration from civil rights activists including Frederick Douglass, progressive originalists seek to recast an ostensibly conservative method of constitutional interpretation grounded in what the “founding fathers” or a historical public thought or intended. Roosevelt’s and Sunstein’s books reveal the potential and limits of both progressive originalism and insular disciplinary conversations about constitutional interpretation. Contrastingly, the multidisciplinary Democracies in America has a more expansive conception of whose voices should matter when interpreting the Constitution through a progressive originalist lens. A comparative analysis of the three books also demonstrates the value of literature and literary historians in an age characterized by the ascendancy of historical approaches to constitutional interpretation and a revival of the “canon wars.”
本文对 Geoffrey Kirsch 的评论文章 "What's Past is Prologue:通过评估 Kirsch 评论的三本著作--Kermit Roosevelt, III 的《从未有过的国家》(The Nation That Never Was:重构美国的故事》(2022 年)、Cass R. Sunstein 的《如何解释宪法》(2023 年)以及 D. Berton Emerson 和 Gregory Laski 编辑的文集《美国的民主》:十九世纪和今天的关键词》(2023 年)--与进步的原创主义进行了互动。进步原创论者从弗雷德里克-道格拉斯(Frederick Douglass)等民权活动家那里汲取灵感,试图以 "开国元勋 "或历史公众的想法或意图为基础,重塑一种表面上保守的宪法解释方法。罗斯福和孙斯坦的著作揭示了进步原创主义和关于宪法解释的孤立学科对话的潜力和局限性。与此形成鲜明对比的是,多学科的《美国的民主》一书对通过进步原创主义视角解释宪法时谁的声音更重要有了更广阔的概念。对这三本书的比较分析还表明了文学和文学史学者在以历史方法解释宪法和 "法典战争 "复兴为特点的时代的价值。
期刊介绍:
Recent Americanist scholarship has generated some of the most forceful responses to questions about literary history and theory. Yet too many of the most provocative essays have been scattered among a wide variety of narrowly focused publications. Covering the study of US literature from its origins through the present, American Literary History provides a much-needed forum for the various, often competing voices of contemporary literary inquiry. Along with an annual special issue, the journal features essay-reviews, commentaries, and critical exchanges. It welcomes articles on historical and theoretical problems as well as writers and works. Inter-disciplinary studies from related fields are also invited.