Is America an Experiment? Vitalizing Conservatism in Minnesota and the Nation

In a speech before an American Experiment Luncheon Forum, Prof. Wilfred McClay discusses intriguing issues like these:

Ever since the time of its Founding, our American nation has been understood as a great experiment, both by ourselves and by the world.  But what does it mean to think of a nation as an “experiment”?  Does it mean that everything about our society and government is open to constant revision, so that change is the only constant?  Or is the idea of America as an experiment actually a deeply conservative idea, one which gives us insight into what American conservatism has been, and what it needs to become in the 21st Century?

Bill McClay holds the Sun Trust Chair of Excellence in the Humanities at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.  His presentation will be part of a year-long series of Center activities aimed at vitalizing conservatism in Minnesota and elsewhere, spurred in antiseptically nonpartisan ways by a certain national convention to be held next summer in St. Paul.  Set for release immediately after the New Year is a new American Experiment symposium, featuring 40 local and national writers, addressing the question:  “What Does It Mean to be an Urban Conservative?”