AMERICA AT 250 

Learn more about the American story: A liberal-arts approach.
Quarter-credit courses for Fall 2025 and Spring 2026

Participate at Bucknell in our country’s 250th anniversary by exploration of poetic-rhetorical, historical, and philosophical aspects of the semi-quincentennial year of America that just began. Stand-alone or in-sequence, take one for quarter credit or both across the year for half credit.

UNIV 119 (Fall) America at 250: Telling the Story.
We’ll look at narrative history of the American Revolution (with Rick Atkinson’s recent volumes as principal texts) as a type of story-telling, and consider how it frames and shapes ideas about America today, while considering contentious issues and writing challenges as contexts.

UNIV 119 (Spring) America at 250: The Founding Documents as Literature.
We’ll read and discuss the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, selections from the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers, and the Gettysburg Address, as a kind of literature that has helped shape national narratives, and poetics that helped shape a myth (good or bad) of America.

Work will be based mainly on reading and participation in 40-minute weekly meetings. Whether you have pre-law or political, policy, historical, philosophical, or literary interests ...or just want to engage in learning more about America with fellow Bucknellians, come join our exploration!

About your discussion facilitator: Prof. Siewers is a professor of literature at Bucknell University with a B.A. and M.A. in history and a Ph.D. in English, who taught courses at Bucknell this past year on "America at 250." A former award-winning journalist at the Chicago Sun-Times whose work included writing about governmental and political issues, his classes and writings include a focus on the relation between texts and modern government. He is Orthodox Christian Chaplain at Bucknell and Rector of St. John's Orthodox Church in Winfield, and his teaching and research also include a focus on issues about faith and freedom in the modern world, which he relates to the American founding documents. A descendant of a veteran of the Battle of Lexington, he in college studied with the prominent American history scholar Gordon Wood.