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!
 
Your instructor, Fr Paul Siewers, holds a Ph.D. in English, and a B.A. and M.A. in History. As an undergraduate, he majored in U.S. history at Brown with Prof. Gordon Wood as an instructor, an eminent early American scholar. He has worked as a journalist covering current issues of the American experience. In diverse American fashion, while a Russian Orthodox priest, he is also a direct descendant of one of the New Englanders who fought at the Battle of Lexington in 1775.

Notes and Discussion Guide
https://america250.blogs.bucknell.edu/2025/08/05/america-at-250-discussion-guide/

Open Discourse Coalition is proud to provide textbooks to enrolled students. Snacks and refreshments will be supplied for discussions.