Living Room Learning Lecture by Dr. Dominic Erdozain (Week 3)

Please note that the series package includes all seven lectures taking place every Monday from January 25 to March 8, 2027. 

The series will take place in McElreath Hall. Doors open at 1:30pm and lectures begin promptly at 2:00 pm with a brief intermission. Parking is free.

Thomas Jefferson often criticized Native Americans for worshipping their ancestors. This unthinking “veneration for the supposed superlative wisdom of their fathers,” he protested, “chains them to their present state of barbarism and wretchedness.” Strong words, but was American patriotism any different? In his first inaugural address, Jefferson described the United States as the “world’s best hope,” a light to the nations – a belief that enabled him to dodge the question of slavery. This lecture discusses the ways patriotism covered the cracks in the early republic, and considers what a more constructive patriotism might look like. 

Dominic Erdozain was educated at Oxford and Cambridge and taught for several years at King’s College London before moving to Atlanta as a freelance writer. He is the author of several books, including One Nation Under Guns and most recently, To Love a Country: the Problem of Patriotism in America. He plays tennis and plants trees in his spare time.