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University of Nevada-Las Vegas: Tocqueville on the US Judiciary
April 17, 2023 @ 4:00 pm
On April 17, 2023, the University of Nevada-Las Vegas’s Great Works Academic Certificate Program will host Alan S. Kahan for a lecture on Tocqueville on the US Judiciary.
It is a rarely noted fact that Alexis de Tocqueville was a lawyer. It is true that he gave up the practice of law forever when he took ship for America in 1831. But a close reading of Democracy in America shows how carefully he read the US Constitution, discussed American law with the leading American legal experts of his day, and analyzed the social and political effects of the American legal system. Tocqueville’s insightful discussion of American lawyers and American courts has rarely attracted attention from commentators, but it has much to teach us at a moment when legal decisions have never attracted more scrutiny and the courts more controversy.
Monday, April 17, 2023 • 4:00 PM PT
Frank and Estella Beam Hall, Room 242 • University of Nevada-Las Vegas
Free and open to the public.
Alan S. Kahan is professor of British civilization at the Université de Paris-Saclay. He is a senior member emeritus of the Insitut Universitaire de France, and previously was professor of history at Florida International University in Miami. He has written a number of books, including a translation of Tocqueville’s The Old Regime and the Revolution; Mind vs. Money: The War Between Intellectuals and Capitalism; Tocqueville, Democracy, and Religion; and most recently Freedom from Fear: An Incomplete History of Liberalism, which will be published by Princeton University Press in August. He lives in Paris and is a connoisseur of croissants.
The Great Works Academic Certificate Program at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas provides students with an opportunity to take part in a conversation with some of the best thinkers of all time. The study of great works in philosophy, politics, literature, sciences, religion, and the fine arts encourages critical thinking. Such study confronts what it means to be human and thus immeasurably enhances a person’s daily life. The program also gives students who want to pursue graduate education early experience in grappling with original works of theory and literature such as they will inevitably encounter in graduate school.
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