“We have never been anti-exceptionalists”

A Gilbert Lecture hosted by 51's Department of English and featuring Professor Dana D. Nelson of Vanderbilt University.

What: Professor Dana D. Nelson of Vanderbilt University will present a lecture titled “We have never been anti-exceptionalists” The project of repudiating the exceptionalism associated with the Cold War era founders of American Studies came at the same academic moment as the canon debates — they both started in the mid-1980s.

In the twenty-first century, we’ve thoroughly repudiated American exceptionalism but we’re still glued to the old fashioned canon.  And here’s what Prof. Nelson said she started to wonder: Does our inability to let go of the white male canon give the lie to our vaunted anti-exceptionalism?

 Who: Professor Nelson is the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of English. She is the author of Commons Democracy:  Reading the Politics of Participation in the Early United States (Fordham UP, 2016) and Bad for Democracy:  How the President Undermines the Power of the People (U Minnesota P, 2008)  
 When: April 6, 2017
6 p.m. Reception
6:30 p.m. Lecture
 Where: McCord Auditorium of Dallas Hall, Room 0306 
 Cost: Free and open to the public
 More Info:  and                 
   

Gilbert Lecture Series

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