Constitutions and Culture Studies

I wrote this paper in response to a hundred-odd manuscript pages of Bruce Ackerman's forthcoming book Discovering the Constitution. Fleshing it out, I have come to sense that the paper shares some of the occupational weaknesses of the new and somewhat beleaguered discipline of a transnational study of culture, especially if that study steps back from what is perceived as contemporary. Conceptual schemes and extent of scholarship cannot be made to balance. Once again, then, the following pages must be offered as possible directions for future work.