Event Details
The Declaration of Independence revealed both the American revolutionaries’ aspirational new ideals and their often-conflicting established values and interests. As a result, the Declaration has both inspired reform causes and justified restraints on radical changes throughout American history. Professor Rogers M. Smith illuminates the tensions within the Declaration, the many roles it has played in American history, and what it might meant to take the Declaration as central to American national identity today.
Presented by Dr. Rogers Smith, Christopher H. Browne Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. His many publications include Civic Ideals, a 1998 Pulitzer Prize Finalist. Smith has been Penn’s Associate Dean for Social Sciences and President of the American Political Science Association. He was founding director of the Penn DCC Program, the forerunner of the Andrea Mitchell Center, and co-founder of the Teachers Institute of Philadelphia. He received five teaching prizes from Penn and Yale. Smith is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Political and Social Science, and the American Philosophical Society.