Prof Stephanie McCurry
speaker
162 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Jul 2026
last heard 5 Jul
Prof Stephanie McCurry’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.
Appearances
Talking History with Patrick Geoghegan · 250: The US Declaration of Independence · 5 Jul 2026
podcast
Well, that's for sure.
I think I actually think about it as kind of the American creed, like no matter what happens to it in any political moment, it's going to survive.
It's still going to be the touchstone of American life and aspiration to American life.
It's taken a lot of damage over the years, but it's still standing and that all men are created equal with these inherent rights and
But the other interesting thing to say maybe at the beginning is the inherent rights aren't they're a little bit they sound a little bit modern right the pursuit of happiness like if you asked us what's the pursuit of happiness you'd get a million different answers.
It's an interesting question to think about what that meant in 1776 I mean maybe Elijah has a really sharp answer to that but.
When I teach it, I always talk about how it's not a life, liberty, and the pursuit of property, which would have been the more Lockean approach to the social contract.
And it's certainly United States is, as we all know, committed to the pursuit of property.
But the pursuit of happiness, I think, in time and place was more of this Scottish Enlightenment philosophy of,
people who constitute government and pursue the common good in the interests of the communal whole.
I know I'm curious about what Elijah thinks about that.
That's absolutely true.
And in fact, when my friends here on the show were talking about the language of the Declaration, I think there's really direct parallels and maybe even straight up.
evoking the pacing of the Declaration in the Gettysburg Address.
There's a lot of three-word phrases, the pacing, the syncopation of the thing.
It's 280 words long.
It's tiny, right?
It took two minutes to deliver.
It was over before anybody knew he'd started talking in the crowd.
And it's a stunning, it's incredibly moving.
Showing 1–20 of 162 · page 1 of 9
Next →