Sunday, September 14, 2014

Amar to Lecture on "Magna Carta and the American Constitution"

[From the Library of Congress's press release.]

Constitutional law scholar Akhil Reed Amar will discuss Magna Carta and its historical connection to the U.S. Constitution on Sept. 16 at the Library of Congress

The lecture, titled "Magna Carta and the American Constitution," will serve as the annual Constitution Day lecture presented by the Law Library of Congress. Amar will speak at 1 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 16, in the Montpelier Room on the sixth floor of the James Madison Memorial Building, 101 Independence Ave. S.E., Washington, D.C.

Sponsored in part by the American Bar Association Standing Committee on the Law Library of Congress, the event is free and open to the public. Tickets are not needed. . . . Amar’s lecture also is part of the Magna Carta lecture series held in conjunction with the Library’s upcoming exhibition "Magna Carta: Muse and Mentor," which opens Nov. 6, 2014, and runs through Jan. 19, 2015.

Amar will base his lecture on his two most recent books, "America's Constitution: A Biography" (2005) and "America's Unwritten Constitution" (2012), and will offer an overview of the grand project of American constitutionalism, past, present and future. Amar will highlight the ways in which the American constitutional experience has both drawn upon and broken with English constitutional precursors such as Magna Carta and the English Bill of Rights of 1689. [More.]