Dissertation Project

Staging the State

Constitutional judgment, public performance, and the limits of spiritual jurisdiction.

This research section has been rebuilt as a book-like dissertation. Instead of one long prospectus page, it now opens with a table of contents and links into chapter pages that move from founding-era constitutional discourse to staged Supreme Court thought experiments about the limits of state power.

Core question

What can the constitutional state rightly govern, and what must remain beyond its jurisdiction?

Method

Political theory, founding-era print history, performance analysis, and staged legal thought experiments.

Form

A native web dissertation designed to be read like a linked scholarly book.

Abstract

What this dissertation argues.

Staging the State argues that constitutional authority is made credible not only through doctrine and institutional design, but through scenes of address, persuasion, performance, and judgment. The founding archive shows how the American state had to be narrated before it could be inhabited. The later chapters extend that insight into conflicts where the state is tempted to overreach into sacred offense, spiritual injury, or metaphysical promise.

The dissertation therefore treats separation of church and state not merely as an administrative arrangement, but as a doctrine of political humility. The state may regulate conduct and adjudicate disputes, but it cannot safely certify transcendence, govern the soul, or repair spiritual injury on theological terms without claiming a form of authority constitutional restraint should deny it.

Table of Contents

Read it like a book.

Front matter Introduction: scene, question, and dissertation architecture

Establishes the central claim, the project archive, and why the website itself is part of the argument.

 Chapter 1 Ratification as staged public judgment

Shows how founding-era constitutional discourse made institutions legible through voice, sequence, and public address.

 Chapter 2 Federalist and Anti-Federalist scenes of scale and legitimacy

Reads the ratification debates as rival dramaturgies of fear, trust, consolidation, and political distance.

 Chapter 3 Church-state restraint and spiritual jurisdiction

Moves from constitutional legibility to the question of what civil power can know, recognize, and rightfully govern.

 Chapter 4 Federalists: The Musical, Case One: sacred offense

Tests whether the state can restrain expression on the basis of blasphemy or sacred injury without becoming arbiter of sacrilege.

 Chapter 5 Federalists: The Musical, Case Two: rapture insurance

Asks whether the state can enforce a metaphysical contract without certifying transcendence or administering eschatology.

 Conclusion The constitutional state as a bounded performer of public judgment

Draws together the project's implications for political theory, legal performance, and the limits of state power.

 Back matter Working bibliography and research apparatus

Collects the current primary sources, historiography, and theoretical scaffolding for the dissertation.

How To Read

Three ways into the project.

  • Start with the introduction if you want the dissertation's main claim and architecture in one place.
  • Jump to Chapters 4 and 5 if you want the theatrical case studies first and the founding archive second.
  • Use the bibliography as a research shelf if you are reading this as a prospectus or committee-facing document.

Publication Form

The website is part of the argument.

This dissertation is designed for linked reading rather than a single fixed container. Navigation, sequencing, modular structure, and public legibility are not decorative features here. They are part of the claim that constitutional judgment is staged through arrangement, circulation, and scenes of encounter.

Begin Reading

Open the introduction and enter the dissertation.