Hillsdale will offer a new online course called “Colonial America: From Wilderness to Civilization” starting Nov. 6, featuring lectures from College President Larry Arnn, Associate Professor of Politics Kevin Slack, and Professor of History Paul Moreno.

The six-part documentary course will feature lectures from Hillsdale professors.

The course will explain what made the American Revolution uniquely successful in establishing a just and prosperous government, according to Executive Director of Online Learning Jeremiah Regan

“The American people, beginning with the first colonists and their descendants, theorized, lived, and built a way of life,” Regan said. “After the revolution, they didn’t have to create it out of thin air. They’d been practicing it for 150 years.”

Regan said the college chose this subject because of America’s 250th anniversary next year and because it was a topic that many Hillsdale professors are experts in.

“All the professors in the class teach about the colonial period in different areas of their classes,” Regan said. 

The course is timed to release in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, with new episodes posting on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

A sequel course, called “Revolutionary America,” will air next May and June in time for the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Slack said his perspective as a politics professor helps him talk about history in a more in-depth way.

“History helps to keep political theorists honest about the facts and to avoid making false generalizations,” Slack said. “Yet politics, as Aristotle says, is the architectonic art — it treats broad structural questions that organize those facts, ultimately to understand a people’s priorities, mores, and character.“

Slack said his favorite part of the course is its emphasis on culture and tradition.

“It focuses on early American traditions,” Slack said. “Hopefully, this course will make Americans aware of our noble past and what it means for our future.”

Online Learning is hosting a screening of the first episode of the course, open to all of campus and the larger Hillsdale community, in Plaster Auditorium on Nov. 13 at 7:00 p.m.