Skip Navigation

2024 Josh Lee Lecture - Julian Zelizer

Skip Side Navigation

2024 Josh Lee Lecture | October 9, 2024

Julian Zelizer: What Makes the 2024 Election So Historic? A Look at the Past, A Look Toward the Future


3 – 4 p.m. | Wed. October 9
Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation Auditorium
Gaylord Hall, Room 1140
395 W. Lindsey St. | Norman, OK  

Much of our campaign coverage focuses on the day-to-day events that shape the election. Princeton University professor and CNN political analyst Julian Zelizer will step back and try to provide a bigger sense of the big picture - how 2024 compares to other pivotal elections that the nation has experienced. Rather than asking whether this election is historic, he will explore the specific ways in which 2024 is significant using the past as a guide for where the nation might be moving.

The lecture is complimentary and open to the public. Parking information is available from OU Parking Services. For more information or accommodations, please call the Center at (405) 325-6372 or email carlalbertcenter@ou.edu.

The lecture will be livestreamed on YouTube. Click the link below to view.

The Josh Lee Lecture is sponsored by the Symcox Family, the Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center, and the Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences.

About the Speaker

New York Times best-selling author Julian E. Zelizer has been among the pioneers in the revival of American political history. He is the Malcolm Stevenson Forbes, Class of 1941 Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton University, a CNN Political Analyst and a regular guest on NPR’s "Here and Now." He is the award-winning author and editor of 25 books including, The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society, the winner of the D.B. Hardeman Prize for the Best Book on Congress and Fault Lines: A History of the United States Since 1974, co-authored and Burning Down the House: Newt Gingrich, The Fall of a Speaker, and the Rise of the New Republican Party. The New York Times named the book as an Editor's Choice and one of the 100 Notable Books in 2020. His most recent books are Abraham Joshua Heschel: A Life of Radical Amazement and The Presidency of Donald J. Trump: A First Historical Assessment, which he edited, and Myth America: Historians Take on the Biggest Lies and Legends About Our Past which he co-edited with Kevin Kruse.

He is currently working on a new book about the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and the 1964 Democratic Convention entitled ‘Is this America?’: Reckoning With Racism at the 1964 Atlantic City Democratic Convention. In July 2024, NYU Press will publish his new co-edited book, Our Nation At Risk: Election Security as a National Security Issue. In January 2025, Columbia Global Reports will publish his book, In Defense of Partisanship. Zelizer, who has published over 1200 op-eds, has received fellowships from the Brookings Institution, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, the New York Historical Society, and New America.