Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar, Daniel T. Rodgers, Princeton University

No historical document is more iconic in our own times than John Winthrop's "Model of Christian Charity" in which the "we shall be a city upon a hill" appeared. At the same time, no foundational document in American history is more misunderstood. This lecture, a preview of the book Rodgers is now completing, will tell the story of how a text was made, lost, refound, and repeatedly reinvented over the centuries. Texts have lives, often quite slippery and unexpected ones. But stabilizing certain texts, imagining them as timeless and foundational, also plays a critically important part in the construction of modern nationalism. The lives of words and the dynamics of nationalism come into focus in Winthrop's "city on a hill."