Democracy, Commemoration, Peoplehood. A "1776/2026" talk by Professor Jason Frank (Cornell)
800 University Avenue
Madison, WI 53706
- Presented By: UW-Madison Center for the Humanities
- Dates: November 12, 2026
- Location: Elvehjem Building, Room L150
- Time: 5:00 PM to 6:30 PM
- Price: Free and open to the public
OVERVIEW
John Quincy Adams once wrote that democracy “has no monuments,” and that its “very essence is iconoclastic.” Yet monumental commemoration has been a continued site of political conflict in American democracy, a site where the boundaries of peoplehood are contested and reconfigured. This “1776/2026” talk will explore the dynamic connections between democracy, commemoration, and peoplehood, asking on the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence: What does it mean to commemorate a democratic revolution?
