Friday, July 30, 2010

Yale Law School




I was pleased to be able to participate in the Institute for Constitutional History's faculty workshop at Yale Law School earlier this month. I appreciated the interdisciplinary nature of the workshop -- participants included history, political science, and law professors -- which led to robust debates/discussions (due to differing methodological approaches to the same questions).

The topic was "Processes of Legal and Constitutional Change." How does law change? How does law change the world? The leaders of the workshop were Professors Steve Teles (political scientist from Johns Hopkins) and David Fontana (law professor from GW).

More than 43 books/articles/chapters were assigned (I was having grad school flashbacks!), and, thanks to the contributions of the workshop participants and the Yale Law School faculty who joined us each day (Bruce Ackerman, Robert Gordon, Jack Balkin, and Reva Siegel) - I have even more scholarship added to my "To Read" list.

I was very grateful for the opportunity to be able to conduct research at the law school library which also gave me access to the vast resources -- 10 million volumes! -- available at Sterling Library. The international and foreign law librarian was most helpful in leading me to appropriate sources about the Moldovan legal system. Check out this amazing "Country-by-Country Guide to Foreign Law Research" that she compiled:



I also posted a photo of the "bookeye" -- an amazing scanning machine that allowed me to scan *quickly!* relevant chapters and bring them home with me. I am in awe of the bookeye!

It was quite a busy and exhausting week, but the topic/readings/seminars were of great help to me as I prepare to head overseas to work on my project related to law and politics in Moldova.

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