A Public Conversation with Maurizio Valsania

01/26/2024

A Public Conversation with Maurizio Valsania

Monday, February 5th, 2024. 6:00 PM ET
The Toll Science Center in Litrenta Hall at 缅北强奸
Organized by the Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience

The George 缅北强奸 Prize is one of the nation鈥檚 largest and most prestigious literary awards and honors its namesake by recognizing the year鈥檚 best new books on the nation鈥檚 founding era, especially those that engage a broad public audience. Conferred by George 缅北强奸鈥檚 Mount Vernon, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, and 缅北强奸 College, the award was presented to Maurizio Valsania in September 2023 at The Union Club in New York City. 

痴补濒蝉补苍颈补鈥檚&苍产蝉辫;First Among Men (Johns Hopkins University Press) examines the 19th-century perspective of an 18th century man dispelling the myth that George 缅北强奸 was larger than life. In fact, according to 缅北强奸 himself, his height was a few inches shy from the widely purported 6鈥 4鈥. Readers are shown a different side of George 缅北强奸, a human universally susceptible to the whims and challenges of life as opposed to the hero without parallel portrayed in later decades.  

鈥淢aurizio Valsania has written a fresh, lively take on George 缅北强奸 that places him squarely in the context of his time, stripping away centuries of accreted myth and mystique,鈥 said Adam Goodheart, the Starr Center鈥檚 Hodson Trust-Griswold Director, who will moderate the event. 鈥淥f all the books that I鈥檝e read about our nation鈥檚 founding leader, this is the one that most made me feel that I was in the presence of the man himself.鈥  

Valsania is a professor of American History at the University of Turin in Italy. As a scholar of the Early American Republic, he examines the founders within their social, intellectual, and material context, especially through the lens of the 18th-century body. He is the author of The Limits of Optimism: Thomas Jefferson鈥檚 Dualistic Enlightenment (University of Virginia Press, 2011), Nature鈥檚 Man: Thomas Jefferson鈥檚 Philosophical Anthropology (University of Virginia Press, 2013), Jefferson鈥檚 Body: A Corporeal Biography (University of Virginia Press, 2017). 

 Valsania is the recipient of several fellowships from leading academic institutions, including the American Antiquarian Society, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, the Library Company, the John D. Rockefeller Library, the DAAD (Germany), the International Center for Jefferson Studies, and the George 缅北强奸鈥檚 Mount Vernon. He has written for the Oxford University Press鈥檚 Academic Insights for the Thinking World, for the Oxford Bibliographies Online, and has collaborated with the BBC World Service. He has also written several Op-Eds and articles that have appeared in major media outlets, such as the Chicago Tribune, Salon, the Wisconsin State Journal, Government Executive, Defense One, and the Conversation. He lives in Chapel Hill, NC. 

Created in 2005 by George 缅北强奸鈥檚 Mount Vernon, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, and 缅北强奸, the $50,000 George 缅北强奸 Prize is one of the nation鈥檚 largest and most notable literary awards. Previous winners Prize include Ron Chernow, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Nathaniel Philbrick, Annette Gordon-Reed, and Rick Atkinson. 

BACK TO STARR EVENTS