Stephen Holmes

Courses

• Colloquium on Law and Security

  The Colloquium will explore a broad array of emerging issues in the rapidly changing field of national security. Today, U.S. policy makers no longer see transnational terrorism as the central threat to American national security. Unchallenged American hegemony is increasingly a feature of the past. The nature of how we fight as well as how we cooperate across borders is changing. The aim of the seminar, therefore, is to define and debate the new, complex and evolving threat environment facing the country in the third decade of the twenty-first century. We will look abroad, including at deteriorating relations with an increasingly powerful China and a belligerent Russia, the threat of cyber warfare and “gray zone” tactics, the weakening of America’s traditional alliances and values, and emerging conflicts in regions such as the Middle East. And we will also focus on domestic issues in the United States, including white nationalism and systemic racism, strains on our system of democracy, challenges within our national security bureaucracy, and persistent, and growing, questions around executive powers and the adequacy of Congressional oversight. Each week we will engage with a presentation by an eminent national security expert—including former government officials, legal academics, international relations specialists, journalists, and human rights activists—as we explore the defining features and dilemmas of today’s national security law and policy. The semester’s speakers will include: Rosa Brooks, a former Defense Department official, author and Professor at Georgetown Law Center; Masha Gessen, a New Yorker staff writer and author and leading thinker on Russia and authoritarianism; Liza Goitein, the co-director of the Brennan Center’s Liberty & National Security program and expert on emergency powers; NYU Law Professor and founding Editor-in-Chief of Just Security, Ryan Goodman; Cardozo Law Professor Rebecca Ingber, a former government lawyer and scholar in international and national security law and presidential power; Robert Malley, the President & CEO of International Crisis Group and a former senior government official; Fordham Law Professor Catherine Powell, an expert in human rights, constitutional law and national security; NYU Law Professor Sam Rascoff, a cybersecurity and intelligence expert; Ganesh Sitaraman, a Vanderbilt Law Professor and author in constitutional law, economic policy, democracy, and foreign affairs; and Stephen Vladeck, a University of Texas Law Professor and commentator and litigator on national security law matters.

• Law and Politics in the Bible Seminar

  This seminar will be organized around a close reading of 1 and 2 Samuel, the story of King David, arguably the greatest work of political theory in the history of Western literature. The seminar will also deal with the political theology of the book of Judges as a background to 1 and 2 Samuel and the covenantal conceptions of law and politics theat emerge from the rest of the biblical tradition. Themes to be discussed will include divine and human law, political and priestly authority, obedience and rebellion, loyalty and betrayal, heroism and human frailty, tribalism and transcendence, kingship and covenant, political authority and idolatry.

• Law and Politics in the Thought of Carl Schmitt and Hanna Arendt Seminar

  This seminar will explore the legal and political theories of two of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century. Among the concepts to be discussed will be: authority, liberty, constitutionalism, legalism, instrumental reason, democracy, revolution,emergency,totalitarianism, and imperialism. Our focus will be on major works of each writer including Schmitt’s Concept of the Political and Political Theology and Arendt’s Human Condition.