University of Virginia, Monticello Launch Thomas Jefferson MOOC on President’s Day

The University of Virginia and Monticello are launching a massive open online course – or MOOC – on the life and legacy of Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, third president of the United States and U.Va. founder.

Titled “Age of Jefferson,” the course launches Feb. 17 – President’s Day – and is being taught by Peter Onuf, U.Va.’s Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Professor Emeritus, senior fellow at the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello and an expert on Jefferson and the early American republic. The six-week, noncredit course is free and can be taken on either Coursera or iTunes U. (A preview of the course can be viewed here.)

“Thinking about – and with – Jefferson enables us to gain a fresh perspective on our world, a world that Jefferson did so much to shape,” said Onuf, who is also one of the three “history guys” who host the public radio show, “BackStory with the American History Guys.” “The American Revolution marked a critical and formative epoch in the emergence of the modern world. Studying Jefferson, his hopes and fears, his achievements and his failures, enables us to understand our world better.”...