From Professor Skover:
“As a constitutionalist, I have no choice but to recommend John Hart Ely’s Democracy and Distrust (1980). It is no exaggeration to claim that this work is the most influential constitutional law book written in the second half of the 20th Century. Since its publication, it has been cited massively by courts and constitutional commentators, and it has become the cornerstone for an entire school of constitutional theory. Known as “process-based constitutionalism,” this theory generally argues that the Constitution is primarily concerned with process and structure, and not with the judicial identification and preservation of specific substantive values. Whatever you may think of process-based constitutionalism (and some, indeed, think very little of it), you cannot be a truly literate student of constitutional law without becoming extremely familiar with the merits and demerits of Professor Ely’s famous theory of judicial review."

From the Publisher:
Written for layman and scholar alike, the book addresses one of the most important issues facing Americans today: within what guidelines shall the Supreme Court apply the strictures of the Constitution to the complexities of modern life?

About the Author:
John Hart Ely was one of the most widely-cited legal scholars in United States history according to a 2000 study in the University of Chicago’s Journal of Legal Studies. A graduate of Princeton and Yale Law School, he clerked for United States Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren before joining the faculty at Stanford Law School. In 1996, he joined the faculty at Miami Law School. He died in 2003.

Additional information online: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/ELYDEM.html

Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press, 1996
E184.A1M314 1996

From Dean Testy:
“Mari Matsuda, Professor of Law at Georgetown, has had a profound influence upon the way I think about law and justice. Her essay, “Multiple Consciousness as Jurisprudential Method,” which is the opening essay in her book, Where is Your Body, helped me to understand how to continue to work for justice through law even while recognizing that there is injustice in the legal system. She has also highlighted for me the importance of working in coalition – that we can unite our various struggles for justice without erasing the many important differences between and among them. And finally, she reminds me of the importance of action – that just believing certain ideals is not enough. Instead we have to ask: where is your body? What are you actually doing to work for justice?”

From Professor Chon:
“Mari Matsuda and other pioneers of critical legal theory direct our attention to where we are situated in social spaces. Often unaware of where we are positioned vis-à-vis others except in physical spaces impossible to ignore, we make the mistake of thinking that the way we experience the world is the way the world is for everyone. Where is Your Body? interrogates the reader about class, gender, race, sexual orientation, nationality, disability, age and other categories that give each of us a partial perspective on an invisible but powerful social matrix affecting all of us. Law is harnessed in the service of justice only when we continually grapple with this basic but elusive point.”

About the Author:
Mari Matsuda was the first tenured female Asian American law professor in the United States (UCLA, 1998). One of the primary voices in critical race theory since its inception, Professor Matsuda is a nationally recognized expert on civil rights, feminist theory, affirmative action, and hate speech; her publications on reparations and affirmative action are frequently cited.

Additional information online:
http://www.law.georgetown.edu/curriculum
/tab_faculty.cfm?Status=Faculty&Detail=286

The Travels of Babar

New York, NY: Random House, 1934
PZ7.B78 2002

From Professor Halliburton:
“This has always been one of my favorite books, from the time it was first read to me to the last time I reread it. The magical aspect of this book, for me, is a reflection of the fact that it provided my first moment of conscious learning. As I sat and listened to my parents reading the Travels of Babar, I was aware of the connections to be made between sounds and text, or between human feeling and literary form. It was that first feeling of intellectual awareness that has driven me ever since, and which taught me that fundamental change can come from simple sources.”

From the Publisher:
When their balloon is caught in a violent storm, Babar and Celeste embark on an exciting adventure that takes them to distant lands. They arrive home at last, only to discover that the elephants are at war. This is vintage de Brunhoff—a must for Babar fans and a story sure to charm and engage young readers.

About the Author:
Often considered the father of the modern picture book, Jean de Brunhoff (1899-1937) is best known as the creator of Babar the elephant, one of the most beloved characters in twentieth-century juvenile literature. Lauded as an artist and writer of exceptional talent, Brunhoff is praised for creating classic works that have been popular with children and adults around the world.

Additional information online: http://www.bookfinder.us/review9/0394805763.html

New York, NY: Norton, 1978
PS3535.I233D7 1993

From Dean Testy:
“I also chose a book of poetry by Adrienne Rich, as I am a huge fan of poetry and she is one of my favorite poets. Poetry demonstrates the power of language, and so much of law works through language. Rich’s poem, ‘Power,’ is a favorite of mine. In her musings on the work of Marie Curie, Rich reminds us that our wounds often come from the same source as our power. I’ve always admired Rich for the beauty of her language, for her honest self-reflection, and for combining all of that with a probing social consciousness.”

From the Publisher:
"Rich's poems do not demand the willing suspension of disbelief. They demand belief, and it is a measure of her success as a poet that most of the time they get it. . . . The affirmation and the occasional moments of pure joy in these poems are quiet but fully earned."—Margaret Atwood, New York Times Book Review

About the Author:
One of our country’s most distinguished poets, Adrienne Rich was born in Baltimore in 1929. Over the last forty years she has published more than sixteen volumes of poetry and four books of nonfiction prose. Rich’s work has achieved international recognition and has been translated into German, Spanish, Swedish, Dutch, Hebrew, Greek, Italian, and Japanese. She has received numerous awards, fellowships, and prizes, including the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Lenore Marshall/Nation Prize for Poetry, the Fund for Human Dignity Award of the National Gay Task Force, the Lambda Book Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Poetry, the National Book Award, the Poet’s Prize, the MacArthur Fellowship, and, most recently, the Dorothea Tanning Prize of the Academy of American Poets and the Lannan Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award (2000). Since 1984 she has lived in California.

Additional information online: http://www.wwnorton.com/catalog/backlist/031033.htm

New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 2002. HV4708.S38 2002

From Professor Halliburton:
“This book chose me. An accidental discovery, written by an active member of political circles in which I do not run, Dominion has nevertheless been one of the most powerful intellectual and personal influences of my recent life. As a devout vegetarian, a book which details the horrors or humanity’s treatment of animals of all varieties – from factory farming to staged kills during big game hunting – has ready if not uncomfortable appeal. I was nevertheless unprepared for the onslaught of ideas and emotions which Dominion evoked. I had not seen an articulation of the moral quandary created by the routine infliction of suffering on animals that matched my own passionate commitments until this work. From Biblical entreaties that we exercise dominion over the earth, to modern ‘conservationist’ arguments in favor of exotic species ‘harvesting,’ the range of excuses used to justify the ongoing torture of sentient beings is systematically debunked. The power of the pen is on full display in Dominion, and it provides a light to guide the development of scholarship in general.”

From the Publisher:
Throughout Dominion, Scully counters the hypocritical arguments that attempt to excuse animal abuse: from those who argue that the Bible's message permits mankind to use animals as it pleases, to the hunter's argument that through hunting animal populations are controlled, to the popular and "scientifically proven" notions that animals cannot feel pain, experience no emotions, and are not conscious of their own lives. The result is eye opening, painful and infuriating, insightful and rewarding. Dominion is a plea for human benevolence and mercy, a scathing attack on those who would dismiss animal activists as mere sentimentalists, and a demand for reform from the government down to the individual. Matthew Scully has created a groundbreaking work, a book of lasting power and importance for all of us.

About the Author:
Matthew Scully served from January 2001 to July 2002, and from December 2002 to August 2004, as special assistant and senior speechwriter to President George W. Bush. He worked in the President's 2000 campaign and has also written for Vice Presidents Dan Quayle and Dick Cheney, and the late Pennsylvania Gov. Robert P. Casey, with whom he collaborated on Fighting for Life. A former literary editor for the National Review, his work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, and The New York Times, among other newspapers and magazines. He lives with his wife Emmanuelle in Phoenix, Arizona.

Additional information online:
http://www.stmartins.com/search.html