Richard A. Samuelson will be the guest speaker for Thomas Jefferson Lectures to be held at The University of Tennessee Space Institute’s auditorium from 3:00-4:30 pm on Thursday, April 22, 2010.

The topic of Samuelson’s lecture will be “Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and the American Future”. It was an exciting time for Jefferson, Adams and their friends as they proceeded in creating a new nation, knowing the task at hand. John Adams wrote in the spring of 1776, “You and I, my dear friend, have been sent into life at a time when the greatest lawgivers of antiquity would have wished to live. How few of the human race have ever enjoyed an opportunity of making an election of government, more than of air, soil, or climate, for themselves or their children!”

Samuelson, Assistant Professor of History at California State University, San Bernardino, California, is currently the Garwood Visiting Fellow in the James Madison Program at Princeton University. He has held fellowships or teaching appointments at Claremont McKenna College, the University of Paris VIII, the National University of Ireland, Galway, the University of Glasgow, Liberty Fund, the Massachusetts Historical Society and the International Center for Jefferson Studies. He also writes about ‘constitutionalism, the rule of law, religion, politics, and empire in America’s founding era’. He has been published extensively and currently is writing a book on John Adams’ political thought, John Adams and the Republic of Laws.

The Thomas Jefferson Lectures began in 1996 as the result of a gift from a generous benefactor, and UTSI has been able to bring to the community guest lecturers who have presented many interesting and informative areas of Thomas Jefferson’s life and times.

Area high school students have been notified through their schools of this event and have an opportunity to write an essay that will be judged and the winner announced at the end of the lecture.

A reception will follow in the UTSI lobby. This event is free and open to the public and everyone is invited to attend.