Dr. Jason Barrett

Office:    S228
Phone:   (248) 204-3537
E-mail:   jbarrett@ltu.edu

B.A., History, University of Michigan (1993)
M.A., History, University of Virginia (1994)
Ph.D., History, University of Michigan (2006)

Recipient of Mellon Doctoral-Candidacy and Dissertation fellowships, research fellowships from the Virginia Historical Society (Richmond, VA) and the Huntington Library (San Marion, CA).  Dissertation: "The Market's Virtue: Law and Political Economy in Jeffersonian Virginia".  My work examines the origins of American "liberalism" - the union of democracy and capitalism in the nation's Founding. I am specifically interested in the ways in which American law and courts adapted to / helped impose a new paradigm for property rights, contracts, capitalization, corporations etc. in response to the ideology of the American Revolution and Federal Constitution; and further how those values regarding consent, rights, equality etc. became suffused in early national culture: in religious practice, race relations, political culture, kinship structures and so on.  I am currently revising my dissertation manuscript for publication.