Aaron Hall is an Assistant Professor of Law in the Jurisprudence & Social Policy Program at the University of California, Berkeley. Focusing on American constitutionalism, governance and slavery in historical perspective, Hall’s research studies how people have created, contested, exercised and experienced forms of legal authority. His forthcoming first book, The Founding Rules: Slavery and the Creation of American Constitutionalism, 1789-1889, traces the rise of an authoritative Founding in nineteenth-century constitutional law, culture and politics. A separate, ongoing project examines American slavery as a public institution—a regime of governance in which private rule was constructed and circumscribed by layers of state power. Hall’s scholarship has been published in the Journal of American History, Law and History Review, Law and Social Inquiry, Journal of Southern History, and other venues.
Prior to joining the Berkeley Law faculty, Hall was a McKnight Land-Grant Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota and a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow at Cornell Law School.
Education
Ph.D., History, UC Berkeley
J.D., Harvard Law School