Jedediah Spenser Purdy (born 29 November 1974 in Chloe, West Virginia) is an American legal scholar and cultural commentator. He is the William S. Beinecke Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, where he teaches courses on American Constitutional Law, Constitutional Law and Democracy and its Crisis. From 2004 to 2018 Purdy was a professor at Duke University. Purdy is the author of two widely discussed books: For Common Things: Irony, Trust, and Commitment in America Today (1999) and Being America: Liberty, Commerce and Violence in an American World (2003).