Kahn, Paul W. 1952-

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KAHN, Paul W. 1952-

PERSONAL:

Born 1952. Education: University of Chicago, B.A., 1973; Yale University, Ph.D., 1977, J.D., 1980.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Yale Law School, 127 Wall St., New Haven, CT 06511.

CAREER:

During early 1980s, practiced law and clerked for Justice Byron White, U.S. Supreme Court, Washington, DC; Yale Law School, New Haven, CT, 1985—, currently Robert W. Winner Professor of Law and Humanities, and director of the Orville H. Schell, Jr., Center for International Human Rights.

WRITINGS:

Legitimacy and History: Self-Government in American Constitutional Theory, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 1992.

The Reign of Law: Marbury v. Madison and the Construction of America, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 1997.

The Cultural Study of Law: Reconstructing Legal Scholarship, University of Chicago Press (Chicago, IL), 1999.

Law and Love: The Trials of King Lear, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 2000.

Putting Liberalism in Its Place, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 2005.

Out of Eden: Adam and Eve and the Problem of Evil, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 2007.

The Cultural Study of Law has been translated into Spanish.

SIDELIGHTS:

Law professor Paul W. Kahn is the author of a number of books, including his first, Legitimacy and History: Self-Government in American Constitutional Theory, in which he studies not only an historical perspective, but also a contemporary consideration of constitutional thought. "The task of constitutional theory is to reconcile the concept of self-government with the existence of constitutional limitations on the exercise of political power," explained Daniel O. Conkle in Constitutional Commentary. As Conkle further noted, Kahn feels that in order to do so, the passage of time since the adoption of the Constitution must be addressed. Conkle commented that Kahn contends that "one must appeal to the political self-identification of citizens. More precisely, one must link citizens to the Constitution in such a way that they regard the Constitution, however dated its enactment, as somehow a product of their own self-government. Relatedly, one must address the relative roles of 'reason' (political 'science' or truth) and 'will' (democratic consent or legitimacy) in one's understanding of constitutional government." Conkle asserted: "Kahn offers a fascinating and richly nuanced intellectual history and critique of American constitutional theory. This is an outstanding book."

In The Reign of Law: Marbury v. Madison and the Construction of America, Kahn interprets the 1803 landmark case which established the U.S. Supreme Court's right to determine the constitutionality of actions by the other branches of government, and he studies broader theories regarding the rule of law. "What Kahn recovers from Marbury is the imagination of the rule of law as a system of political order," reported Helena Silverstein in the American Political Science Review." "This archaeological inquiry and recovery is founded on Kahn's view that the rule of law is a belief system structured by the imagination. As a belief system, the rule of law gives meaning to our political experiences, offers an organization of power, and provides a perspective for understanding both the community and the self."

In The Cultural Study of Law: Reconstructing Legal Scholarship, Kahn contends that "the culture of law's rule needs to be studied in the same way as other cultures." Michigan Law Review contributor Arthur Austin wrote: "For Kahn, reform is the inevitable product of the interaction of reason and will. Reason guides the rule of law with rational restraint, analytical deliberation, and logical critique."

Kahn describes Law and Love: The Trials of King Lear as "the fourth volume in a series in which I have sought to redirect the study of law away from the problems of legal reform, and toward the interpretation of legal culture." David A. Gugin related in Perspectives on Political Science: "His eight chapters constitute a major contribution, I think, not only to the understanding of legal culture (his intention) but to the broader area of literature's informing importance to normative political theory."

Putting Liberalism in Its Place is Kahn's study of the decline of American liberalism. The author does not reject liberalism, but rather considers it within the larger worldview. Particularly since the attacks of September 11, 2001, liberals have witnessed what they see as unacceptable changes, including the role of religion in public life. Ethics & International Affairs reviewer Samuel Moyn commented: "Kahn, an unorthodox Yale law professor whose basic project is to introduce political and legal thinkers to the richer methods of humanists, writes that the real difficulty is that liberals also rely on a long tradition and an encumbering set of commitments—but are unable to see that they do so. Making the reality of liberalism visible, Kahn argues, will help its partisans understand the world of politics the September 11 trauma only made seem new." Moyn felt that this volume "provides an image of liberalism so different from the one its partisans have customarily entertained that it is doubtful they will easily accept it."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Political Science Review, June, 1998, Helena Silverstein, review of The Reign of Law: Marbury v. Madison and the Construction of America, p. 439.

Booklist, April 15, 1999, Mary Carroll, review of The Cultural Study of Law: Reconstructing Legal Scholarship, p. 1491.

Constitutional Commentary, winter, 1994, Daniel O. Conkle, review of Legitimacy and History: Self-Government in American Constitutional Theory, pp. 247-255.

Ethics & International Affairs, December, 2005, Samuel Moyn, review of Putting Liberalism in Its Place, p. 110.

History: Review of New Books, spring, 1998, Edward M. Wheat, review of The Reign of Law, p. 126.

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, September, 2002, Simon Roberts, review of The Cultural Study of Law, p. 593.

Michigan Law Review, May, 2000, Arthur Austin, review of The Cultural Study of Law, p. 1504.

Perspectives on Political Science, fall, 2000, David A. Gugin, review of Law and Love: The Trials of King Lear, p. 246.

Review of Metaphysics, June, 2001, Keith Culver, review of The Cultural Study of Law, p. 920.

Society, May, 2001, A. Javier Trevino, review of The Cultural Study of Law, p. 95.