Vanderbilt University Law School
Mark E. Brandon
Professor of Law Professor of Political Science Director, Program in Constitutional Law & Theory
Voice: (615) 322-3057
Fax: (615) 322-6631
Email: mark.brandon@vanderbilt.edu
Office: Room 242
View curriculum vitae (.pdf)
Links
Research Interest(s)
Problems of constitutional history, theory and interpretation; constitutional failure; family and the Constitution; war
Education
Ph.D. Princeton University
M.A. University of Michigan
J.D. University of Alabama School of Law
B.A. University of Montevallo
Biography
Mark Brandon’s scholarship focuses on problems of constitutionalism. He is the author of a book, Free in the World (Princeton University Press), on American slavery and constitutional failure. He has also written on secession, federalism, limits to the amending power, and war in the American constitutional order. His current scholarship includes a forthcoming book on Family and the American Constitutional Order, in which he investigates relations among family, law and the Constitution in the United States. The book explores the ways in which family might participate in creating, maintaining and changing a constitutional order, how that order might try to shape or use family, and how effective law can be in achieving either goal. During the 2008-09 academic year, he will be working on this book as a Visiting Senior Research Scholar in the Program in Law and Public Affairs at Princeton University. In addition to the book, Professor Brandon is working on an essay on "War and Constitutional Change" and an article on "The Preamble in American Constitutional Interpretation." Professor Brandon has been designated co-chair of the Division of Constitutional Law and Jurisprudence for the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, to be held in Toronto in fall 2009. He has taught at the University of Michigan, the University of Oklahoma, Princeton University, and the University of Alabama, where he was the Frank B. Spain Chairholder of Law. He joined Vanderbilt's law faculty after serving as a visiting professor during 2000-01.
Representative Publications
Books
Free in the World: American Slavery and Constitutional Failure (Princeton University Press, 1998)
Articles
"War and the American Constitutional Order," in The Constitution in Wartime (Mark Tushnet, ed., Duke University Press, 2005). Abridgement of article in 56 Vanderbilt Law Review 1815 (2004)
"Federalism, Founders, and the Court: Remarks on Killenbeck," 57 Arkansas Law Review 69 (2004)
"Home on the Range: Family and Constitutionalism in American Continental Settlement," 52 Emory Law Journal 645 (2003)
"Secession, Constitutionalism, and American Experience," 44 NOMOS 272 (2003)
"Family at the Birth of American Constitutional Order," 77 Texas Law Review 1195 (1999)
"The 'Original' Thirteenth Amendment and Limits to Formal Constitutional Change," in Responding to Imperfection: The Theory and Practice of Constitutional Amendment (S. Levinson, ed., Princeton University Press, 1995)
Working Papers
"The Preamble in American Constitutional Interpretation"
"War and Constitutional Change"
Family and the American Constitutional Order (book in progress)
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