As we approach the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the Salvatori Center and the Open Academy are co-sponsoring a conference to explore the ideas at the heart of the Declaration. The conference will bring together faculty and students to work through seminal texts in the history of political thought that helped shape the Declaration of Independence and liberal democratic government more generally.
 
Faculty and students will spend the morning in seminar discussing works by Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Algernon Sidney, along with the writings of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Thomas Paine, and Fredrick Douglass. These texts raise questions about liberty, equality, and the basis of popular government that we are still working through today.
 
In the afternoon, faculty and students will visit the British Library, Parliament, Tower of London, Churchill War Rooms, National Portrait Gallery, and take in a play at Shakespeare’s Globe to complement the academic seminars and keep our discussions going in an informal setting.