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Profs and Pints DC presents: “George Washington as American Revolutionary,” a fresh assessment of our first president’s credentials as an insurgent, with Denver Brunsman, associate professor and chair of the history department at George Washington University and scholar of the American Revolution and early American republic.
If it’s Presidents’ Day it’s time for historian Denver Brunsman, a Profs and Pints fan favorite, to give his annual talk on our nation’s founders. Watch him in action and he just might edge out Cupid and the groundhog on your list of those whose appearance you look forward to in February.
This year Professor Brunsman will devote his seventh annual Presidents’ Day talk to exploring just how deserving George Washington is of the title “revolutionary.”
Although not as radical as many of his fellow revolutionaries, Washington was at the forefront of the American Revolution, and he came to define a particularly American style of political revolution. Professor Brunsman will discuss Washington’s increasing radicalization during the 1760s and 1770s and how he came to shed the title of British subject in favor of American citizen.
In addition, we’ll consider Washington’s response to other Atlantic revolutions, including the French and Haitian, and we’ll look at how his conduct as an enslaver affects his legacy as a revolutionary.
The talk coincides with the recent move by George Washington University to adopt the moniker “Revolutionaries” after nearly one hundred years as the “Colonials.” Professor Brunsman will discuss the moniker change, which he helped to lead, and how well it reflects historical reality.
In what has become a Presidents’ Day tradition, Professor Brunsman will close his lecture with historic toasts and odes to America’s first president. This is a holiday celebration not to be missed. Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah! (Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later.)
Image: A cropped portion of “Washington Crossing the Delaware,” an 1851 painting by Emanuel Leutze (Metropolitan Museum of Art / Wikimedia Commons.)
