Jeremy Elkins
Contact
or by appointment
Department/Subdepartment
Education
Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley.
M.A., University of California, Berkeley.
B.A., University of California, Santa Cruz.
Areas of Focus
Political and legal theory; institutions
Biography
Jeremy Elkins’s interests are primarily at the intersection of political and legal theory, and the study of institutions.
He has written on the idea of constitutional rights, on the relation of popular sovereignty and constitutionalism, and on the nature of legal rules, and is currently writing on the function of war as a metaphor in domestic and foreign policy, and is working on a book about our competing commitments to the idea of law.
His courses in public law (e.g., Constitutional Law, Administrative Jurisprudence) explore, in the context of particular legal controversies, broad themes of democratic theory—including the problem of how political regimes should treat various kinds of differences and various kinds of hierarchies, the relation of law and politics, and the nature of rights in the modern state.
He also teaches a variety of courses in political theory, philosophy, and philosophy of law/jurisprudence, among them courses on Hegel; Nietzsche; the nature of law; democratic theories and problems; problems of modernity; constitutionalism; and sacrifice.