BU Class Ponders “Revolutionary Icons” as the Declaration of Independence Anniversary Nears
Would you have coffee with Ben Franklin? Boston University students in Joseph Rezek’s (CAS/American Studies) Revolutionary Icons class aren’t jumping at the chance.
Sure, they know the founding father’s gold-plated CV: prodigious inventor/scientist, helpmate in drafting the Declaration of Independence, respected diplomat who helped negotiate the end of the American Revolutionary War. But after reading Franklin’s autobiography, the preoccupations of which include thrift and acquiring wealth, HB Bielawa (CAS’26) speaks for others in finding the book’s self-made-man’s pretensions disingenuous….
The relevance of Rezek’s decade-old course swells this year, the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Expanding the scholarly prism beyond these shores is deliberate, he tells BU Today: “The American Revolution heavily influenced the French Revolution, which heavily influenced the Haitian Revolution. There’s a kind of circuit of excitement about overturning old, unjust institutions and monarchies.”
To read more, visit BU TODAY where this article originally first appeared on March 16, 2026.