Jared Kazik Asser

Jared Asser is a Doctoral Candidate in the History Department, where he is writing a dissertation on the relationship between emotions and politics during the early years of Reconstruction. While the political realm is often thought of as the domain of reason and debate, this categorization does not hold in the past, or our own time. Rather, those who can guide expectations about what people think they should feel, can exert tremendous influence on the political development of a region or nation. He hopes to bring this perspective into the work of the VIPR Applied History Team.

With VIPR, he is exploring how solid historical research work can undermine "originalist" interpretations of constitutional amendments.