![]() Which written sources, and which words, count for purposes of determining constitutional meaning? This question is being asked across the spectrum of constitutional interpretation, in theories ranging from originalism to common-law or “living” constitutionalism. This perennial question of what words and phrases mean is particularly important in the arena of constitutional interpretation. Recent advances in theoretical and computational linguistics, as well as vast new corpora of American and English usage, make possible the precise identification of the lexical shifts that have occurred over the past two centuries. Our project, titled “Historical Semantics and Legal Interpretation,” brings together research in historical jurisprudence and in theoretical and computational linguistics in order to understand the meanings of words and phrases in context. With my colleague Jason Merchant of the University of Chicago’s linguistics department, I have been working for the past three years on a project that brings together the fields of law and linguistics, as well as my other field, intellectual history. The Constitution includes the following phrases, all controversial but none self-evident: “keep and bear arms” “the recess” “cruel and unusual punishment” and “gifts, emoluments, offices or titles.” The leading modes of constitutional interpretation - originalism, textualism, and common-law constitutionalism - rely on distinct theories of meaning, but they do not agree on which meanings are relevant or even on what “meaning” means. The task of understanding the meaning of the words and phrases that constitute legal texts has always been an important one, but the urgency is even greater today. Courtesy of the New York Public Library Digital Collections. New Walking Tour Announced for #SHEAR2022Ĭaroline Rousset, ca.Unity in Diversity?: Babylon in Early America.Welcome to New Orleans, From the Local Arrangements Committee for #SHEAR2022.Historical Concepts and Biographical Research.The Trauma of Writing about Black Children’s Death and Criminalization.SHEAR Announces the Winners of the 2022 Book, Dissertation, and Article Prizes.Call for Papers for SHEAR in Philadelphia, 13-16 July 2023.Lesson Plan: Primary Documents as Material Culture: Encouraging Students to See a Source from All Sides.Respond to SHEAR Survey about Mentorship Program.Go Figure: Why the Female Arithmetic Whizzes Were Invisible.Wrestling with the Titan Or, Interpreting That One Really Weird Piece of Evidence.The Possibilities and Perils of Slavery’s Digital Archive.In Memoriam: Johanna Nicol Shields, 1942-2022. ![]() ![]() #NEHstories Bringing the Sea into the Classroom Companion Reading for the JER Digitally Engaged Historians Digital Research Digital Age Engaging America's Gun Culture Facing the Public in Perilous Times JER in the Classroom Pacific Early Republic Pandemics and the Past Past as Prologue: Religion in the Early Republic Pedagogy Hacking Revisiting the Cholera Years Sovereignty in the Age of Standing Rock Student Voices Supporting Second Book Writers Talking About Slavery in the Age of #BlackLivesMatter Teaching in the Age of Trump Teaching the Early Republic in Red-State America Teaching the New Economic History Teaching to and from the American Revolution The Culture of the Confederation Era Welcome to The Panorama
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