Course Details
970: 250th Year Celebration of the Declaration of Independence
July 9-10
11:45 AM -
1:15 PM
Online
In celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, this course offers a word-by-word, phrase-by-phrase analysis of one of the most influential documents in world history. Its ideas have inspired figures from the French revolutionaries of 1789 to Ho Chi Minh, and were claimed by both Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln. Approved by Congress on July 4, 1776, the Declaration marks the birth of the United States. We will examine its structure, language, and ideas while exploring key questions: what Jefferson meant by equality, liberty, and happiness; how Enlightenment thought shaped the document; and how convincing the evidence was for labeling King George III a tyrant. This study group has a high class size capacity.
Class Type: Lecture and Discussion
Class Format: Online
Hours of Reading: No reading
Study Group Leader(s):
Heather DudleyHeather Dudley has taught at both the high school and college levels. She graduated summa cum laude from the University of Maryland and holds a Master of Arts in History, a Master of Arts in Psychology, and a Doctorate in Liberal Studies from Georgetown University. She writes an occasional blog at charactermattered.org and is the author of The Free and the Virtuous: Why the Founders Knew That Character Mattered. In addition to teaching at OLLI for a number of years, she has served as an adjunct professor of psychology at Northern Virginia Community College.