Date: Thursday, February 12, 2026

Time: 5:30pm to 7:00pm

Location: Kerwin Hall, Room 301 

How could the author of the Declaration also have owned slaves? Stevens shares her research into Jefferson's antislavery words and actions and explore the reasons why Jefferson still looms so large in the national memory.

Cara Rogers Stevens is an Associate Professor of History at Ashland University. Her research focuses on race and slavery in the Jeffersonian Age, and it has been published in the Journal of Southern History and American Political Thought. Her book Thomas Jefferson and the Fight Against Slavery (2024), won the Herbert J. Storing Book Prize and was a finalist for the Center for Presidential History’s Book Prize, the Journal of the American Revolution’s Book of the Year award, and the George Washington Prize. The book examines what Jefferson did—and did not—do to end slavery and bring equality to America. She also won the APSA’s Best Article in American Political Thought award in 2022. She earned a BA in English from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, an MA in history from the University of Texas at Dallas, and an MA and Ph.D. in history from Rice University.