About this course: When John F. Kennedy entered the presidential limousine at Love Field in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963, he began his ride into history. That journey continues even today and we call it the Kennedy legacy. This course will explore the Presidency, assassination, and lasting legacy of President John F. Kennedy. Students will learn how JFK’s life, administration, and tragic death have influenced the general public, the media, and each of the nine U.S. presidents who followed. Understanding the Kennedy legacy and being able to identify elements of his legacy within the context of modern politics helps understand many of the vexing problems that developed over the last half century as well as many of the challenges that confront us today. November 22, 1963 was so powerful a moment that in the fifty years since the assassination, every U.S. President that followed JFK has used Kennedy’s words and actions in an effort to craft their own political image. Why does Kennedy’s influence persist, and will it continue? What are the effects? We’ll address these questions and more as we explore The Kennedy Half Century. Follow on Twitter: @JFKclass.
Taught by: Professor Larry J. Sabato , Robert Kent Gooch Professor of Politics
Director, UVA Center for Politics
| Commitment | 9 hours of videos and quizzes |
| Language | English |
| How To Pass | Pass all graded assignments to complete the course. |
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I enjoyed the course and the book very much. Kennedy's life, presidency, and legacy is a fascinating topic in modern American political history, and Professor Sabato took an interesting approach to it. I'm too young to have as visceral a reaction to the stories as my parents do, and partly I wanted to understand that generation of Americans and the effect that these events had on them better. Also, the Kennedy years were such an interesting historical moment, a time of great change and great potential (for both good and awful things). It was very interesting to listen to the professor trace the historical effects of many of the events of those days, and to see him measure the impact on later presidencies and world events. It was a brief class, and even the book couldn't go into enough detail for many of these topics, but I thought this was a good overview, and it merely sharpened my interest to learn more from other sources with other perspectives or areas of focus in the future. A very interesting and stimulating course.
i
Inspiring, fascinating, absorbing.
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MW
I absolutely loved this course. It was so interesting, I found myself racing through the lectures, because I wanted to find out more.