"This course is an intensive study of the highest court in the federal judiciary, focusing on the place of the Supreme Court in the American constitutional order. Areas of study may include the relationship between the Court and the other branches of the federal government as well as the states; the Court's power of judicial review; and judicial politics and statesmanship. We will examine these kinds of issues by investigating how the Court has interpreted the Constitution in some of its most historic decisions."

"A study of the sectional conflict beginning with the nullification crisis. The course will not only examine the political, social and economic developments in the period leading to the Civil War, but will emphasize the political thought of Abraham Lincoln, Stephen Douglas, and John C. Calhoun."

"This course will examine military aspects of the war, as well as political developments during it, including the political history of the Emancipation Proclamation, the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural. The course also examines the post-war Amendments and the Reconstruction era."

"This course is an examination of the political and constitutional development of the office of president from Reconstruction to the present. It focuses on how changing conceptions of the presidency have shaped American political life in the 19th and 20th centuries, especially as America has become a global power."

"This course will examine military aspects of the war, as well as political developments during it, including the political history of the Emancipation Proclamation, the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural. The course also examines the post-war Amendments and the Reconstruction era."

"A study of the sectional conflict beginning with the nullification crisis. The course will not only examine the political, social and economic developments in the period leading to the Civil War, but will emphasize the political thought of Abraham Lincoln, Stephen Douglas, and John C. Calhoun."

"This course will explore the history of black Americans as they strove to secure their dignity as human beings, and rights as American citizens, in the face of racial prejudice. It will examine the diverse viewpoints of leading black intellectuals and activists on human equality, slavery, self-government, the rule of law, emancipation, colonization, and citizenship. Contemporary issues to be considered may include affirmative action, black reparations, racial profiling, and the 'achievement gap' in education."

"This seminar gives special emphasis to selected Jefferson manuscripts, offering participants an intensive exploration of primary sources—the building blocks of historical study. Monticello itself is the site of several study tours. Lecture and discussion topics include Jefferson and the West; archaeology at Monticello; African Americans at Monticello; the architecture of Monticello; Jefferson’s empire; the Louisiana Purchase; and Jefferson and the Constitution."

"This seminar is concerned with the formative period of early American constitutionalism. It begins with the pre-Revolutionary debate over the rights that the American colonists could claim under the 'ancient' imperial constitution, and ends with the escalating controversies over the interpretation of the Federal Constitution of 1787, culminating (in a sense) with the Supreme Court’s much-heralded decision in Marbury v. Madison and its less known but arguably more important holding in Stuart v. Laird a week later. In between, the heart of the seminar focuses on the constitutional experiments of the 1770s and 1780s: the adoption of the first state constitutions (1776-1780), and the framing and ratification of the Federal Constitution (1787-1791, if we throw in the first ten amendments)."

"This seminar, led by Ira Berlin, will view the development of chattel bondage in mainland North America from the perspective of the larger Atlantic world. Topics include the nature of the slave trade, the distinction between societies with slaves and slave societies, the evolution of plantation slavery, the transforming face of the Age of Revolutions, the remaking of slavery in the nineteenth century, and the contemporary debate about the meaning of slavery for American life."