Events

Life in an Age of Conflicts and Extremes
Keynote address for In Service to the New Nation: The Life & Legacy of John Jay
Friday, January 22, 6:00-7:30 p.m. EST
Livestreamed event

Registration for the Friday keynote is now closed. Register here for the Saturday panel sessions. 

The Forum is proud to join Columbia Libraries in hosting the keynote address of the 2021 John Jay Papers Conference. The keynote, entitled “Life in an Age of Conflicts and Extremes,” will be given by Prof. Joanne Freeman and livestreamed by The Forum.

Prof. Freeman, whose work illuminates the legacy of Congressional violence and polarizing partisan politics in United States history, is the Class of 1954 Professor of American History and American Studies at Yale University. Her research focuses on the politics and culture of the revolutionary and early national periods, leading into the Civil War era and its aftermath. Her keynote address will examine recent Congressional conflicts and violence through the lens of these powerful historical precedents. Following her address, Columbia History Department Prof. Stephanie McCurry, R. Gordon Hoxie Professor of American History in Honor of Dwight D. Eisenhower, will moderate a discussion, including questions from the audience.

Prof. Freeman’s address launches a virtual conference taking place January 23 from 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. EST. The conference, presented by The John Jay Papers Project, marks the completion of the extensive series of The Selected Papers of John Jay, edited over decades by the Rare Book and Manuscript Library within Columbia Libraries. The conference is free and open to the public, and is co-sponsored by the Office of the University Provost. 

Joanne Freeman: Class of 1954 Professor of American History and of American Studies, Yale University

Joanne Freeman specializes in early American politics and political culture. Her interest in political violence and political polarization—dirty, nasty, politics—has made her work particularly relevant in recent years. Her most recent book, The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War (2017), focuses on physically violent clashes in the House and Senate chambers, and how they shaped and savaged the nation. The book won National Public Radio’s Best Book of the Year award in 2018.

Stephanie McCurry: R. Gordon Hoxie Professor of American History in Honor of Dwight D. Eisenhower, Columbia University

Stephanie McCurry specializes in the American Civil War and Reconstruction, the nineteenth century United States, the American South, and the history of women and gender.  Her current work focuses on the epic human drama of Reconstruction in the U.S. and the comparative history of postwar societies and processes of reconstruction in the 19th and 20th centuries. Her book Confederate Reckoning: Power and Politics in the Civil War South won the Frederick Douglass Prize and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.