Washington, DC
Location will be shared upon confirmation
5:00 p.m. – Arrival and Seating
6:00 p.m. – Welcome and Remarks
6:25 p.m. – Screening of The Man Who Shot Liberty Vance
8:25 p.m. – Matt Peterson Delivers Claremont Cinema Lecture
Registration Opening Soon
Every civilization must have its heroes; every civilization must have a way to propagate the stories of their heroic deeds. When faced with the crisis of the West, Director John Ford turned to the American Western—uniting the great questions of the Homeric Epics with the civilizational questions of the American Frontier.
For America’s 250th Anniversary, the Claremont Institute invites you to join us for a sneak peak of our fellowships, with a private screening of the Ford Classic: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.
After the screening, Mattew Peterson will guide us through the regime-level questions of founding, re-founding, and civilization by giving the beloved Senior Scholar John Marini’s Movie lecture. Remarks from Agriculture historian Wayne Crews will also be featured.
A reception will immediately follow.
Speakers
Matthew J. Peterson
George Washington Fellow at the Claremont Institute's Center for the American Way of Life
Matthew J. Peterson is the George Washington Fellow at the Claremont Institute's Center for the American Way of Life. He is currently launching two new companies. FORUM, a premier events and media platform, hosts discussion and debate across the right’s new coalition. SENTINEL is an AI-based, autonomous intelligence service tracking local government for activist groups and media entities. In 2021, as cofounder of New Founding, he helped bring talent and capital together to foster new businesses in support of the American way of life, including media products and teams that were acquired by Blaze Media in 2023. He then served as Editor in Chief and a member of the executive team at Blaze until October 2025, where he helped revitalize the company, expanding coverage into investigative reports, opinion, lifestyle, and tech, reviving their DC office and obtaining their first ever White House press pass, starting a new magazine, Frontier, and co-hosting a new daily news show. From 2018 to 2021 Dr. Peterson served as the Vice President of Education at the Claremont Institute, directed their fellowship programs, and founded The American Mind. He is often tapped to give advice on political and cultural media strategy. His career started in education, including a three-year stint assisting in the design, implementation, and evaluation of U.S. Department of Education Teaching American History initiatives, testing thousands of K-12 students and teachers and evaluating scores of programs teaching American political thought, history, and civics. He has taught a variety of courses at various colleges and universities including Claremont McKenna College, Loyola Marymount University, and the School of Public Policy at Pepperdine University. Dr. Peterson is a graduate of Thomas Aquinas College and received his M.A. and Ph.D. from Claremont Graduate University. He lives with his wife and four children in Dallas, Texas.
