Actors, Audiences, Aspirations: What Hamilton the Musical Teaches about Politics

Session Submission Type: Full Submitted Panel

Session Description

This session approaches the theatrical phenomenon, Hamilton: An American Musical, from a variety of perspectives and uses this musical theater event to explore aspects of understanding the United States, our civic culture, the romantic notion of the American Founding, particular problems with our constitutional construction, and the place of the Founders, especially Hamilton and Jefferson, in our cultural lexicon. Through Lin-Manual Miranda’s creation, the four authors have approached an aspect of the American political enterprise, institutional or outside of institutions. The connecting thread is not only the musical itself, but also the understanding of Alexander Hamilton as a vital political actor both at the time of the Founding and the aspirations that he had for the American experiment. In each paper, the audience is different, ranging from students in our classrooms, learning about the American political system and their roles as citizens, to citizens at home, watching television adaptations of the Founding, to voters who often find themselves perplexed by the particularities of our electoral process, to scholars and individuals who consider the lives and impacts of the Founders themselves.
Adler’s paper focuses more on cultivating another approach to civic engagement, especially among students in introductory political science courses through the use of Hamilton music and available videos about the show. Through these particular cultural artifacts, Adler is encouraging discussion and active learning about key concepts and critical moments in American history that have shaped politics through the present day. Hamilton has brought to the fore the possibility of a new civic conversation about our political beginnings. With many citizens lacking a sufficient understanding of American political culture at this fraught time, the introductory American Government course is the ideal spot to enhance civic understanding, and Hamilton: An American Musical is an ideal tool to engage this civic understanding.
McHugh explores the way that recent popular culture artifacts, like Hamilton, but also the HBO series John Adams, have breathed new life into some of the less well-known members of the Founding. These productions have also brought forward the role of the women at the time, roles which had otherwise been obscured by the more traditional “great man” approach to such founders. Even as many Americans are unable to actually go to the theater to see the musical Hamilton, the music has become ubiquitous and is consumed by disparate listeners. This paper explores the role that popular culture has had in the public’s reconsideration of these founding characters.  It will focus on how Hamilton: An American Musical and the HBO series John Adams have generated new interest and curiosity about these founders. It will also look at as the economic benefit and political impact of these sources of entertainment.
Knott uses the popular engagement with Alexander Hamilton as an avenue to examine why Jefferson, and others, were so successfully able to obscure Hamilton’s contributions to the Founding of the American political system and why this continued not only in the early days of the Republic, but through the contemporary period. Hamilton’s initial reputation was left, as the musical tells us, to others, since he was always “writing like he was running out of time,” which, indeed, he was. Since his political career and his life were cut short, he is less well-known to most Americans. Both Lin-Manuel Miranda and Ron Chernow restored Hamilton to his proper standing as a key American founder, although they too occasionally misrepresented the real Hamilton. Knott will examine Jefferson’s Hamilton, Miranda’s Hamilton, and the real Alexander Hamilton, whose image has been distorted over time.
Finally, Wendland delves into one of the Hamilton’s most vexing creations, the Electoral College, and his constitutional argument for perpetual re-eligibility and how these political realities have been integrated into our cultural understanding through popular culture avenues. The complexity of the Electoral College often keeps it out of the eye of popular culture except for a few, often obscure, circumstances; yet even in these instances, the coverage of the Electoral College is brief and the storyline is more focused on presidential succession rather than the institution itself. Even in Hamilton: An American Musical, the reality of Jefferson’s election in 1800, with more than 30 different ballots in the House of Representatives to achieve a result, is glossed over. Wendland intends to use not only the example of popular culture (mis-) understandings of the Electoral College to assess the difficulty in amending or changing how this odd creation of Hamilton’s works. Wendland will explore and compare the disparate coverage of the Electoral College vis-à-vis the oddities of presidential succession within popular culture artifacts.

Sub Unit

• DIVISION 41: POLITICS, LITERATURE, AND FILM

Individual Presentations

• Not Throwing Away My Shot: Cultural Artifacts have Revised Founders’ Reputations - Mary A. McHugh, Merrimack College

• History Has Its Eyes On You: Hamilton & Introductory American Government Courses - William D. Adler, Northeastern Illinois University

• Hamilton, Popular Culture, and the Electoral College - Jay L. Wendland, Daemen College

• Miranda’s Hamilton, Jefferson’s Hamilton, and the Real Hamilton - Stephen F. Knott, Naval War College

Chair

• Julia Rezazadeh Azari Marquette University

Discussants

• Lilly J. Goren Carroll University

• Linda Beail Point Loma Nazarene University