Geraldo Cadava: Hamilton’s America

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical, Hamilton, became a national sensation, capturing the imaginations of Americans young and old, far and wide, of diverse backgrounds and ancestries.

A hip hop infused musical, Hamilton is widely considered to have revolutionized the genre of the Broadway musical, just as many saw the American Revolution as a first for the world. Miranda, the show’s creator, has enjoyed all of the accolades befitting a master of his craft: a Pulitzer Prize, several Tony awards, and a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Fellowship. Yet he has been the first to acknowledge that he didn’t do it alone, and he didn’t do it overnight. Miranda, like Alexander Hamilton himself, had collaborators and co-conspirators, he experimented before he found success. And Miranda’s achievement took the better part of a decade to complete, from conception to opening night.

Miranda, therefore, like Alexander Hamilton himself, represents an amalgam of American “character,” that sometimes paradoxical combination of ambition and humility; failure and success; immigration and nativism; tradition and innovation; individual enterprise and dependence on community. Hamilton’s real genius is that it highlights these tensions that are so fundamental to American history.

Students will learn about Hamilton the musical, attempting to account for its extraordinary resonance during the presidencies of Barack Obama and, now, Donald Trump. Why has this historical figure’s life inspired such interest today, in a nation that looks so different from the one that Hamilton (and his enemies) knew? Where does the musical diverge from the history, and what does that say about our memory and use of the past? Does the musical offer an inspiring, multiethnic vision of U.S. history or, as some have argued, a more haunting and problematic one?

And when audiences hear and see Hamilton, what do they take away about the United States today, and about themselves? Join Geraldo Cadava, Associate Professor of History at Northwestern University to explore Hamilton’s America.

This program is taking place remotely. If you have signed up, you will receive an email with details of how to access the program. You will have exclusive access to view it at the scheduled time, or any time afterwards.

Note:

Expect the links 24-48hours before class start date, to be sent to the email address used on the student's enrollment.