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Profs and Pints DC presents: “George Washington Reconsidered,” on where the legacy of our first president fits into current American life, with Denver Brunsman, associate professor of history 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 whom you hope to see appear in February.
This year Professor Brunsman will devote his sixth annual Presidents’ Day talk to tackling the thorny question of just where George Washington fits into our current cultural moment.
On the one hand, Washington has come under fire in our nation’s culture wars, with his reputation rightly diminished by his conduct as an enslaver. On the other he, far more than other presidents, was positioned to try to cling to power but instead chose to give it up for the good of his office and the nation—an act which has brought him renewed appreciation in the wake of the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Professor Brunsman will broadly take stock of Washington and look at a host of areas in which America’s Father can still inspire and guide us. He’ll cover profound topics, like the democratic norms that Washington helped to establish, and seemingly trivial ones like coming up with pets’ names. And he’ll look at the lessons for everyday life that Washington offered us, on matters such as how to marry well and how to pull off the “humble brag.”
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. Please allow yourself time to place any orders and get seated and settled in.)
Image: From an 1803 portrait of George Washington painted by Gilbert Stuart. (Clark Art Institute Collection.)
