Every September, the IACH hosts prominent scholars from around the country to deliver the Rufus Fears Lectures on Roger and Patti Clapp Constitution Day. Federal legislation requires institutions that receive federal funding honor September 17th, the day in 1787 the Framers of the Constitution finished their business in Philadelphia. Thanks to a gift from alumni Roger and Patti Clapp, Constitution Day at OU is named after J. Rufus Fears, a beloved Professor of Classics and Letters.
Sept. 17, 2026 at 1:30 p.m.
Meacham Auditorium in the Oklahoma Memorial Union
Dan Edelstein
Parking available in the Oklahoma Memorial Union parking garage next to the union.
Dan Edelstein is the William H. Bonsall Professor of French, and Professor of Political Science and History (by courtesy) at Stanford University, where he is also a Senior Fellow (by courtesy) at the Hoover Institution. He directs Stanford’s first-year general education requirement, COLLEGE, and co-leads the Stanford Civics Initiative as well as the University’s ePluribus Stanford initiative. He is the author of four books on European intellectual and political history: The Terror of Natural Right (Chicago, 2009), The Enlightenment: A Genealogy (Chicago, 2010), On the Spirit of Rights (Chicago, 2018), and The Revolution to Come: A History of an Idea from Thucydides to Lenin (Princeton, 2025). He is the co-editor of seven volumes, including (with Stefanos Geroulanos and Natasha Wheatley) Power and Time: Temporalities in Conflict and the Making of History (Chicago, 2020). He is currently working on a history of (the idea of) Western culture.
