Aziz Rana is the J. Donald Monan, S.J., University Professor of Law and Government. He joins Boston College from Cornell Law School, where he was the Richard and Lois Cole Professor of Law.
His research and teaching center on American constitutional law and political development. In particular, Rana’s work focuses on how shifting notions of race, citizenship, and empire have shaped legal and political identity since the founding of the country.
His first book,ÌýThe Two Faces of American FreedomÌý(Harvard University Press) situates the American experience within the global history of colonialism, examining the intertwined relationship in American constitutional practice between internal accounts of freedom and external projects of power and expansion.ÌýHis latest book,ÌýThe Constitutional Bind: How Americans Came to Idolize a Document that Fails ThemÌý(University of Chicago Press, 2024), explores the modern emergence of constitutional veneration in the twentieth century -- especially against the backdrop of growing American global authority -- and how veneration has influenced the boundaries of popular politics.
Rana has written essays and op-eds for such venues asÌýn+1,ÌýDissent,ÌýThe Boston Review,ÌýThe Washington Post,ÌýThe New York Times,Ìý New Labor Forum,ÌýJacobin,ÌýThe Guardian,ÌýThe Chronicle of Higher Education,ÌýThe Nation,ÌýJadaliyya,ÌýSalon, and The Law and Political Economy Blog.ÌýHe has articles and chapter contributions published or forthcoming withÌýYaleÌýandÌýOxford University Presses,ÌýThe University of Chicago Law Review,ÌýCalifornia Law Review,ÌýUCLA Law Review,ÌýTexas Law Review, and theÌýYale Law Journal Forum, among others.
Rana is an editorial board member of Dissent, The Law and Political Economy Blog, and Just Security. He is also a Life Member of the Council of Foreign Relations and a Non-Resident Fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.Ìý
​He received his A.B. from Harvard College summa cum laude and his J.D. from Yale Law School. He earned a Ph.D. in political science at Harvard University, where his dissertation was awarded the University's Charles Sumner Prize.
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Recent Media & Appearances
