Welcome to this online course on American Constitutional Law. My name is Aciel Reed Amar. I'll be your instructor and in, and in the next five minutes I'm just going to tell you a little bit about this version of the course, and its history. This is a relaunch. A second edition if you will. Version 2.0 of a course, an online course that was first launched last year in connection with Yale University and Coursera. The students who took that course last year. Liked it quite a lot. And so we are, we are relaunching it and the lectures that are part of this course in this relaunch are exactly the same as the lectures that we had the last time around. But we've then, we've made one important change to last year's format in response to student feedback. Last year's course was a long one. It covered, actually, two separate books that I've written. One, a book about America's written Constitution, and the second, a book about America's unwritten Constitution. And it was, as I said, a long course. And we've decided this year to give you, the student, more options, more choices. We've taken that one long course and broken it up in this new second edition, into two separate standalone courses. In the fall of 2014, you can take a standalone course on the written Constitution, and when you finish that, you can get a certificate of completion and you can stop right there if you like. In early 2015, you can take a separate stand alone course on the unwritten Constitution. And again, when you finish that you can get a cer, certificate of, of completion. You can take one, you can take the other, you can take both you can, you can have more choices this time around. Now in, the next lecture the in, introductory lecture to the, the, the, the two courses I'm going to tell you a little bit more about, America's written Constitution, and what you'll learn, and America's unwritten Constitution, and what you'll learn, about that. In all the lectures that follow, remember these are lectures that were initially done a year ago when it was one long course. So sometimes in these lectures, you'll hear me talk about the first half of the course, or the second half of the course. Just remember, when you hear that, that what used to be the first half is now a standalone course. What used to be the second half, is its own standalone course, and you have more choices this time around. Again, you can take part one, you can take part two, you can take both. Frankly, I hope you take both, and in the next lecture. I'm going to tell you why. [MUSIC]
