Variations on a Theme


Peter Hessler, Country Driving: A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory (2010), page 230:

[I]n Communist China, whenever a new leader takes office, he sponsors a slogan-filled study campaign as a way of consolidating power. “Preserving the Progressiveness” was Hu Jintao’s first attempt at theory, and the precise meaning of the catchphrase was characteristically vague. It was intended to resemble a grassroots operation, although of course all directives came straight from the top.

The themes of the twelve most recent annual meetings of the American Association of Law Schools:

  • 2012: Academic Freedom and Academic Duty
  • 2011: Core Educational Values: Guideposts for the Pursuit of Excellence in Challenging Times
  • 2010: Transformative Law
  • 2009: Institutional Pluralism
  • 2008: Reassessing Our Roles as Scholars and Educators in Light of Change
  • 2007: Expanding Knowledge and Serving Our Communities: Academic, Civil, and International
  • 2006: Empirical Scholarship: What Should We Study and How Should We Study It?
  • 2005: Engaged Scholarship
  • 2004: The Association as a Learned Society
  • 2003: Legal Education Engages the World
  • 2002: Do You Know Where Your Students Are? Langdell Logs on to the 21st Century
  • 2001: Pursuing Equal Justice: Law Schools and the Provision of Legal Services