Exploring Freedom Struggles: 18th Annual Theodore Roosevelt Symposium at Dickinson State University

2023-10-10 20:00:00

BISMARCK TRIBUNE STAFF

Dickinson State University and the Theodore Roosevelt Center are hosting the 18th annual Theodore Roosevelt Symposium on campus Thursday through Saturday.

This year’s public humanities symposium explores the idea of “Freedom Struggles,” which organizers say are struggles older than the nation itself, including issues such as immigration and women’s rights.

“This year’s TR symposium brings together a remarkable group of scholars, including a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the poet laureate of North Dakota, to examine questions that remain as contested today as it was in Roosevelt’s time: What does freedom mean and who gets to define it?” said Chris O’Brien, director of the Theodore Roosevelt Center. “By looking into issues that formed the center of the contest over American identity in that earlier era, including religion, immigration, race, gender and crime, we are confronted with the reality that the past may not actually be past.”

Pulitzer-Prize winning keynote speaker T. J. Stiles will discuss the tensions between progressivism and prejudice. Other speakers include North Dakota Poet Laureate Denise Lajimodiere; and authors Ben Wetzel, who will speak on Roosevelt and religious freedoms, Julie Greene, who will speak on labor rights, Robert Bland, who will speak on Black politics in the Reconstruction Era, and Michael R. D. Connolly, who will speak on Roosevelt’s war against prostitution in New York City.

Theodore Roosevelt Humanities Scholar Clay Jenkinson will lead an educational hike in the Badlands on the final day of the symposium. Roosevelt repriser Joe Wiegand will host a walking tour of the Western town of Medora. There also will be a tour of the Roosevelt Center’s exhibit gallery and library.

There is a cost to attend. For more information or to register, go to dickinsonstate.edu/tr.