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Part 1 (1 hour 34 minutes)
Introduction; Oxford University; Summer interning on Capitol Hill; the influence of ancient Greek and Roman civilizations on America; the time period between the 1776 American Declaration of Independence and the start of the 1787 Constitutional Convention, from dream to details; the confluence of new data and data technology that led to the Quill Project.

Part 2 (1 hour 43 minutes)
Today’s context: the Capitol Hill Riot and the impeachment trial; history of impeachment; history and background to the Electoral College; how slavery was addressed during the Constitutional Convention of 1787; Senate rules and history of the filibuster; democracy versus authoritarianism and the outlook for the future.

The Portrait Conversation welcomes special guest Dr. Nicholas Cole, Senior Research Fellow at Pembroke College, Oxford University, who studies the political thought of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the history of democratic institutions. In this conversation we will discuss the evolution of constitutional democracies and Dr. Cole’s development of the Quill Project, an astounding online resource that meticulously catalogues the day-by-day discussions, debates, negotiations and compromises of the United States Constitutional Convention of 1787. We discuss, from a historical perspective with a focus on what happened during the Constitutional Convention, such pertinent topics of today such as the nature of compromise, impeachment and the Electoral College.

If you’re unfamiliar with the history of the early days of the founding of the United States of America, then I highly recommend listening to the premier episode titled “Framed” of the excellent podcast “Constitutional”.

Dr. Cole’s particular interests are the influence of classical political thought on America’s first politicians, and the search for a new ‘science of politics’ in post-Independence America.

He runs the Quill Project on Negotiated Texts, based at Pembroke College, which studies the creation of constitutions, treaties, and legislation. The Quill software platform (developed with colleagues at the Oxford e-Research Centre) presents a recreation of the original context within which decisions about these texts were made. The flagship work of the project is a presentation of the records of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 that wrote the Constitution of the United States and a variety of other projects are planned or in progress. See the Quill Project website for further details.

Dr Cole teaches American History and the history of political thought and supervises graduates working on the history of institutions, political thought and classical reception. He runs the TORCH (Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities) network on Negotiated Texts.

Here are some interesting links to check out regarding Dr. Cole’s Quill Project and the Constitutional Convention of 1787.

• Quill Project – Visualization Example –
  Sequence of events for Wednesday, 11 July 1787, at 11:00

• Quill Project – Behind the Scenes –
  Research Assistants’ Commentary (1787 Constitutional Convention)

• The Quill Platform Weblog –
  The purpose of the Electoral College

• Quill Project – Commentary Collections Example –
  The Creation of the Electoral College

• Quill Project – Behind the Scenes –
  Research Assistants’ Commentary (1787 Constitutional Convention)

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