CHAUTAUQUA INSTITUTION

MORNING LECTURE PREVIEW

From Patrick Henry’s incendiary challenge, “Give me Liberty or give me Death,” to the final words of the Pledge of Allegiance, the guarantee of liberty has been fundamental in defining the American idea. But how exactly do we define liberty? Is it like “beauty in the eye of the beholder” or should our understanding be firmer, more closely aligned to our understanding of the mutual relationship between citizen and government? If the synonym is “freedom,” is it freedom from or freedom to do, or is it both?

Hunter R. Rawlings III, president emeritus of Cornell University and professor of the departments of Classics and History, begins this final week’s series of Amphitheater lectures devoted to the “History of Liberty.” His 10:45 a.m. lecture, “Two Strands of Liberty in the Western Canon,” should serve as a starting point for Chautauquans to reevaluate and perhaps reformulate their personal definitions and understandings of liberty. Rawlings will describe the Greek and Roman or Classical and the 18th century Enlightenment definitions of liberty, how each affected the founders and ultimately America’s contemporary understanding of the word “liberty.”

He suggested that the American concept as expressed in the Bill of Rights is a statement of freedom from government control. The Athenians would describe freedom as the freedom to do things, namely to contribute to society.

“To Americans, freedom means individual freedom. The Greeks and Romans defined liberty as the free exercise of public responsibility by citizens participating vigorously in the life of their city,” he wrote in a guest column for today’s issue of The Chautauquan Daily.

Any discussion of the American concept of liberty at some point must intersect with one extraordinary group of men: the founders of the United States. Rawlings’ favorite is James Madison.

“James Madison was the opposite of George Washington. Not a good speaker, not a good leader, not a public presence, not charismatic, but he was a thinker, who approached problems from a scholarly point of view,” Rawlings said during Cornell’s “Last Lecture” presentation in 2008.

Speaking of a scholarly point of view, Rawlings has returned to his first love, classroom teaching. When he completed his tenure as Cornell president, he donned the gown of full-time professor in Cornell’s departments of Classics and History, teaching courses on Periclean Athens, Greek Philosophy and Rhetoric, and Greek History and Historiography.

“I adore the classroom and enjoy teaching,” he said.

Though this is Rawlings first visit to Chautauqua Institution, he is no stranger to the idea of a Chautauqua. As a member of the board of the Colorado Music Festival, Rawlings often visited the Chautauqua at Boulder, Colo., where the festival was held.

Rawlings served as Cornell president from 1995 to 2003 and president of the University of Iowa from 1988 to 1995. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and a member of the board of directors of the American Council on Education. In 1966, Rawlings graduated from Haverford College, where he received an honors degree in Classics. He received his doctorate from Princeton University in 1970. He was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow and National Defense Education Act Fellow at Princeton.

In 1981, the Princeton University Press published his book The Structure of Thucydides’ History. He has served as editor of The Classical Journal and is currently a member of the board of managers of his alma mater, Haverford. He also is a board member for the National Humanities Center and the American School of Classical Studies at Athens.

by Lori Humphreys, Chautauquan Daily staff writer