This six-week course on the life and career of Thomas Jefferson is offered as a celebration of his achievements as an American founder and statesman in the bicentennial year of his death on July 4, 1826.

In this course, we will confront one of the central claims of American political life: that the United States is not merely a nation, but a republican form of government founded on the principles of natural right. To understand those principles is to grapple with the life, work, and career of Jefferson — Author of the Declaration of Independence, Minister to France, Founder of the Jeffersonian republican party, and the philosopher-statesman of America.

We'll follow Jefferson from his swift rise to prominence in his early career in and beyond Virginia through his role in the American Revolution, the politics of the State of Virginia, his international diplomacy, his national leadership in federal office, and his decades of influence in retirement as a senior statesman. We examine how his ideas of equality and natural rights, civic virtue, and republican self-government helped to shape the future of the first nation in the world explicitly founded on the natural rights principles. Along the way, we will grapple with some of the inherent tensions between his writings, his career, and his personal life as a Virginian and an American.

Tuesdays | 6 weeks, September 15 - October 20 | 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
In person and simulcast