After much deliberation and contemplation, I have (slightly) narrowed my academic interests in intention and origin to focus specifically on the interpretation of the US Constitution. I remain at the tip of the research iceberg but recently stumbled upon a public/digital humanities project that tries to translate the constitution into a more accessible and informative language (a key feature of my criteria for public scholarship).
Created by The National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, PA, the Interactive Constitution webpage encourages users to explore one of our nations founding documents without having to leave the comfort of their office chair. Based on discourse between “leading constitutional scholars from across the legal and philosophical spectrum”, participants can access the full text of the constitution alone or further their research with access to scholarly explanations of sections of the work.
Based on recommendations from the American Constitution Society and the Federalist Society, the website curators compiled scholastic perspectives into wholistic representations of specific portions of the constitution. Different portions, like the famous “We The People…” Preamble, for example, is broken down into three parts; First, a common interpretation that each scholar agrees on, and then two sections on Matters of Debate, where each scholar provides a synopsis of their oppositional interpretations. These sections are presented as short essays with links to specific court cases or other citations and even suggested reading.
Beyond academic analysis, the website also provides access to an array of digital sources including podcasts, videos, and blogs that are searchable within their Media Library. Even when subscribing for email updates, users have the option to chose the frequency and type of material that is shared with them. And the tech-savviness doesn’t stop there; The Drafting Table and In the Classroom tabs allow users to move past the text and its analysis in creative ways.
The Drafting Table explains the processes of innovation, creativity, and collaboration behind the building of the US Constitution. This portion of the website compiles edits made to each document (with timelines visualizing these changes) and links to individuals and works that inspired the section. The Thirteenth Amendment, for example, provides a blurb on the Northwest Ordinance written by Thomas Jefferson that restricted slavery in the Northwest region of the US.
The In the Classroom webpage appeals to educators looking for authoritative ways to teach the Constitution by providing instructional tools, themes, and materials that could be used in the classroom. They even provide classroom exchanges (where students can debate constitutional questions with another class), constitutional ambassadors, and professional development workshops for educators.
Based on my personal criteria for public scholarship, this digital humanities project meets most, if not all, of my expectations for a user-friendly, inclusive piece of public and digital academic work. While their sponsorship (and thus funding) from the National Constitution Center certainly plays a part in their digital success, it seems that they applied their funds in an efficient manner to appeal to a large portion of the public. Classrooms from the elementary to the college level could find accessible and useful material on the site, whether as an educator or a student conducting research. Though there is little public online interaction like a comments section, there is an option to contact the website creators for more information or just to provide some feedback. It is easy to see a non-academic individual using this website for information also, especially since a link to the Interactive Constitution is provided at the National Constitution Center’s main website and occasionally mentioned on their Twitter page.
While the Interactive Constitution gets a leg-up for its association with a larger government-funded organization, its creative and interactive presentation of previously difficult to obtain information (or at least difficult in the plethora of information around the constitution on the web but also the general inability of most Americans to visit the National Archives to view the text in person) makes it a strong model of public and digital scholarship.