Andrew Jackson Archives - Public Seminar

Democracy

Hannah Arendt: Insurrection and Constitutionalism

The democratic project is both unfinished and unstable

January 31, 2023 • by James Miller

Even though the post-war consensus over the meaning and value of specifically liberal democratic institutions seems more fragile than ever—polls show that trust in government experts and elected representatives has rarely been lower—democracy as furious dissent flourishes as rarely before, in vivid and vehement outbursts of anger at remote elites ...

Hannah Arendt: Insurrection and Constitutionalism

Activism

Reckoning with Deva Woodly’s Reckoning

What kind of coalition must the Left forge in order to defeat Trumpism and whatever comes after it?

January 18, 2022 • by Sidney Tarrow

Black Lives Matter was not born in the streets, even if it sometimes moved there following the police murder of Michael Brown in 2014, and again after the killing of George Floyd in 2020. But the movement, after these intense episodes of protest and direct action has not stayed in ...

Reckoning with Deva Woodly’s <em>Reckoning</em>

Democracy

America’s Political Parties

The order shattering and the order affirming

March 17, 2021 • by Thomas Cobb

The oppositional leadership styles of Trump and Biden have proved the timelessness of the political scientist Stephen Skowronek’s position, outlined in the second chapter of his 1993 masterwork The Politics Presidents Make, that the American presidency displays competing instincts. Skowronek posited that the presidency contained the potential for “order shattering,” ...

History

A Monument to Dis-Union

The West Virginia Coal Miner statue ignores race, class, and history

July 16, 2020 • by Steven Stoll

During our present twilight of the statues, when citizens across the country force the removal of effigies that represent racism and colonialism, Jackson is an obvious target for removal. Yet I’ve been thinking of another statue just a few yards away from Jackson: The West Virginia Coal Miner, a monument ...

Activism

Toppling Andrew Jackson From His Pedestal

A racist who championed ethnic cleansing

July 2, 2020 • by Mark R. Cheathem

In today’s moment of Black Lives Matter and peaceful protests over racial injustice, more Americans than ever are tearing down statues across the country: Confederate heroes, dismantled; icons of Jim Crow, removed. Now, even former presidents aren’t immune. Consider Andrew Jackson -- one of President Trump’s personal models, who is also ...

Toppling Andrew Jackson From His Pedestal

Democracy

The Theater of Impeachment

An interview with Brenda Wineapple

October 29, 2019 • by Charlotte Slivka

BW: That’s a lot of questions! I had to have a sense of what the story was in order for the narrative could take shape. The entire book took six years to research and to write, but the story came to me after about two years into the research. In other ...

Feature

Anthony Wayne, Distributed Sovereignty, and the Bodies of the Republic

From the early modern to the contemporary USA, part 1

April 10, 2017 • by Isaac Ariail Reed

Is Wayne -- from his uncouthness to his ruthlessness to his success -- useful to think with today? There are certainly ways he haunts our present. Historians, for example, have often seen him as a forbearer of Andrew Jackson’s Indian removal policies. And as such he connects, via a recent, ...

Anthony Wayne, Distributed Sovereignty, and the Bodies of the Republic

Multi Media

Valentine’s Day, Obama & Black History, and Andrew Jackson

Past Present: Episode 70

February 16, 2017 • by Nicole Hemmer, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela and Neil J. Young

In this week's episode, Natalia, Niki, and Neil discuss the bawdy history of Valentine's Day, Obama's role in elevating black history, and the parallels between Andrew Jackson and Donald Trump.

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