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Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Imaginary About-Faces by Law Professors

My post about honest about-face moves by law professors, to which both Dan and Micah Schwartzman have made some valuable contributions in the comments, led me to thinking this morning about whether we could put together a library of imaginary about-faces.  (As I've written here before, I am taking a lot of strong pain pills.)  Mostly within my own field of con law, I could imagine some indispensable entries:

Bruce Ackerman, 4 We The People: Never Mind (forthcoming 2027, Harvard University Press)

Jack Balkin, An Originalist Theory of Constitutional Interpretation

Robert Bork, The Seduction of America II: I Was Seduced--and I Love It!

Ronald Dworkin, Taking Rights Less Seriously

---, Justice For Foxes

---, Contract With America, 2nd ed. (with Gingrich, N.)

Lani  Guinier, The Color-Blind Constitution

Marci Hamilton, God vs. the Gavel: An Argument for Religious Freedom [thoroughly revised ed.]

Larry Kramer, We the Court: Reconsidering Popular Constitutionalism in Light of Actual, Thoroughly Unpleasant Encounters With "We the People"

Brian Leiter, How to Win Friends and Influence People [it's a joke, Brian, I swear!]

Alexander Meiklejohn, Why New England Town Meetings Turn Out to Be Boring and Unhelpful

Richard A. Posner, Overcome By Law

Hon. Antonin Scalia, Originalism Without Fear

Cass N. Sunstein, Judicial Maximalism

And, of course:

Kathleen Sullivan with Gerald Gunther, Constitutional Law 18th ed., special ed. (featuring substantial case excerpts, no law review citations, and no more than one question mark per paragraph of "notes and questions")

I welcome other contributions for the library!  Remember that in Borges's world, all of these books already exist. 

Posted by Paul Horwitz on October 19, 2011 at 10:56 AM in Paul Horwitz | Permalink

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Comments

I have to say, that John Lott one really did make me spit out my soda w/laughter. Well done.

Posted by: anon | Oct 25, 2011 2:19:20 AM

Charles Clark, Three Cheers for Twiqbal!

William Brennan, State Constitutions Aren't Worth the Bother.

Posted by: Vladimir | Oct 22, 2011 12:28:44 PM

Barry Friedman: The Will of Corporations

Posted by: Shag from Brookline | Oct 22, 2011 7:05:55 AM

Harold Koh, A Maximalist Theory of Presidential War Powers

David Barron & Marty Lederman, John Yoo Was Right

(at this point, these are more bitter than funny)

Posted by: anon | Oct 22, 2011 4:28:12 AM

Antonin Scalia, Whatever I Want Is What the Framers Intended

John Roberts, I'm an Umpire, But I Have My Own Strike Zone

Posted by: anon | Oct 21, 2011 6:38:48 PM

The Virtues of Concealing Identity, written anonymously by Brian Leiter

Posted by: Michael Teter | Oct 21, 2011 5:03:02 PM

No additions but thanks for the humor. Until now I thought the thinnest book ever written was "The Humor of Law Professors" and the longest "Taking Myself Seriously." The latter had multiple coauthors.

Posted by: Jeff Harrison | Oct 21, 2011 4:56:59 PM

H.L.A. Hart, Morality Matters

Posted by: Matthew Reid Krell | Oct 21, 2011 4:27:38 PM

Louis Brandeis: The Power to Save: How Large Corporations Ensure Prosperity and Protect the American Way of Life

Posted by: Matthew Reid Krell | Oct 21, 2011 4:27:00 PM

Richard Delgado, Rodrigo Goes to Biglaw

Posted by: Eric Muller | Oct 21, 2011 4:10:28 PM

These have been absolutely fabulous comments. I'm grateful to all of you. I would like to add a couple from other disciplines:

Gordon Wood, False Dawn: The American Revolution and the Poverty of Ideas.

Milton Friedman, Regulatory Responses to Market Failures.

Cornel West, On Modesty.

Posted by: Paul Horwitz | Oct 21, 2011 3:57:21 PM

Paul Campos, Being A Law Professor Is Hard Work!

Posted by: Eric Muller | Oct 21, 2011 3:49:26 PM

Eric L. Muller, In Defense of Internment.

Posted by: Eric Muller | Oct 21, 2011 3:47:53 PM

O.W. Holmes, The Circular Path of the Law: The Triumph of the Black-Letter Man.

H. Wechsler, Charlie's Right.

Posted by: Vladimir | Oct 20, 2011 9:54:42 PM

Lawrence Solum, Theory Schmeory

Monroe Freedman, The Chronic Overfunding of Public Defender Offices and How to Stop It

Daniel Solove, The Virtues of Exposure

Posted by: another4thtierprof | Oct 20, 2011 1:41:21 PM

Erwin Chemerisnsky, Hooray for John Yoo: The Most Persuasive Thinker at the Best Public Law School in California

Paul Caron & Dan Markel: Articles or Nothing: The Only Legitimate Form of Legal Academic Writing

Posted by: anon | Oct 20, 2011 12:34:54 PM

Richard Epstein, Complex Rules for a Simple World, or On Second Thought: Negligence!

Richard Epstein, Giving

Posted by: Jake Linford | Oct 20, 2011 7:46:32 AM

Amy Chua: It takes a laid back village

Gerald Rosenberg: Supreme Court, You're Our Only Hope

Louis Sargentich: The Merits of Frequent Publication

Lott, John and Rosh, Mary: The importance of restricting firearm access to individuals suffering from multiple personality syndrome

Elizabeth Warren: The middle class has only itself to blame

Jack Goldsmith: The secret torture memos I wrote that you've never heard about

Posted by: Low hanging fruit | Oct 19, 2011 11:06:16 PM

Nadine Strossen, Words Are the Spings to Action: A New Approach to the First Amendment

Stephan Bainbridge, Shareholders First: Overthrowing Director Primacy

John Yoo, Congress' War Making Powers

Sandy Levinson, Our Infallible Founding Fathers

Posted by: Brad | Oct 19, 2011 8:19:55 PM

Anon writes:Orin Kerr, The Fourth Amendment Puts Meaningful Limitations on the Police

Just to be serious for a second, that's an actual article: Orin Kerr, Fourth Amendment Seizures of Computer Data, 119 Yale L.J. 700 (2010), which argues that copying a computer file is a "seizure," and expressly disagrees with the contrary conclusion in my earlier article, Orin Kerr, Searches and Seizures in a Digital World, 119 Harv. L. Rev. 531 (2005). As the latter article explains in the Introduction:

Finally, this Article acknowledges a change in my own thinking. A few years ago, I argued that mere copying should not be considered a Fourth Amendment seizure. . . .. have now concluded that my prior approach was wrong.

Sorry, I couldn't help myself...

Posted by: Orin Kerr | Oct 19, 2011 7:32:34 PM

Thaler & Sunstein, Shove.
Posner, Problematics of Law & Economics.

Posted by: Jeff Lipshaw | Oct 19, 2011 5:52:36 PM

Carol Steiker and Jordan Steiker, A Modest Proposal to Increase the Death-Sentencing and Execution Rates in the United States

Gerald Frug, The Argument Against Local Governance

Jonathan Zittrain (with Lawrence Lessig), The Case for Lengthier Copyright Terms: Why Eldred v. Ashcroft Insufficiently Protects the Rights of Copyright Owners

Deborah Anker, Illegals and their Asylum Fraud

Larry Tribe, SCOTUS' Greatest Hits: Bush v. Gore

Randy Kennedy, The Case Against Racial Slurs Ever Appearing in Print

Mary Ann Glendon, Abortion As A Basic Human Right

Alan Dershowitz, In Which I Prove I Can Talk About Something Other than OJ

Posted by: HLS | Oct 19, 2011 5:28:26 PM

"Heeellllloooooo, law reviews!"

by Fred Rodell

Posted by: doode | Oct 19, 2011 5:15:30 PM

Philip Bobbitt: Constitutional Coincidence

Posted by: Patrick Luff | Oct 19, 2011 4:34:56 PM

Oliver Wendell Holmes: Three Generations of Imbeciles Are Not Enough

Posted by: andy | Oct 19, 2011 3:21:06 PM

David Bernstein: Rehabilitating Much Ado About Nothing

Randy Barnett: OOPs! I Found It!

Posted by: Shag from Brookline | Oct 19, 2011 2:27:45 PM

Anonymous 12:32 - those are absolutely awesome. Love the Leiter crack, esp.

Posted by: antifashionista | Oct 19, 2011 12:55:14 PM

Antonin Scalia: Our Evolving Constitution
Ronald Dworkin: Crafting Laws that can Interpret Themselves
Richard Posner: Value Pluralism
: Failures of Contract, and What We Can Do About It
Brian Leiter: The Merits of Law Schools Other Than Chicago and Texas

Posted by: Anonymous | Oct 19, 2011 12:32:03 PM

Orin Kerr, The Fourth Amendment Puts Meaningful Limitations on the Police

Kevin Johnson, Enough Immigration Already

Marty Lederman, Killing American Citizens Abroad is Not a War Crime


Posted by: Anon | Oct 19, 2011 11:56:05 AM

Didn't Balkin essentially write his as part of his originalism-doesn't-mean-what-you-think-it-does series?

Posted by: Brad | Oct 19, 2011 11:35:47 AM

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