March is President's Month at Boswell

You'd think all these events would be going on in February, but we have not one, but two presidential events at Boswell in March.

On Tuesday, March 9th, join University of Wisconsin Parkside Professor Sandra Moats for her talk on Celebrating the Republic: Presidential Ceremony and Popular Sovereignty, from Washington to Monroe. According to Moats, the presidential culture we have today has been with us from the very beginning.

From the catalog, which says it better than I can:

"Moats details the trials and errors of our founding fathers as they tried to symbolically establish the authority of the office of the president and the federal government. An elaborate machine designed to “crown” Washington with a laurel wreath at his inauguration shows the struggle of early leaders to invent appropriate and inspiring signs and rituals compatible with republican ideas. We now take for granted the trappings of our government, but titles, accessibility, protocol, tours, and inaugurations were all topics of great debate and deliberate decision making in the early republic."

Then on Thursday, March 18th, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee professor Glen Jeansonne, along with Dave Luehrssen, discuss Barack Obama's formulative years, tieing into their new book Changing Times.

It would look lopsided if I didn't have a similar catalog piece here:

"Changing Times tells the story of Obama's formative years, the family and educational experiences that shaped him, and his private life and public career. It examines the role of religion and culture in molding Obama and his public image, his status in America's class system, and the role of his wife Michelle. Changing Times finds the source of his politics less in ideology than in his personality, which is conciliatory. Obama is a man in search of what Americans hold in common instead of what keeps them apart. He has proven himself comfortable in many roles, including political activism, holding political office, practicing law, and teaching in college."

We don't have an event with David Remnick, but his new book on Obama, The Bridge, arrives April 6th.