Join WXXI for a special screening of clips from Ken Burns’ new docu-series, The American Revolution.

WXXI is proud to host this free screening of a selection of clips from a new six-part film from Ken Burns that explores the country’s founding struggle and its eight-year War for Independence. The screening will be followed by a panel discussion.

Details
Monday, November 3, 2025
The Little Theatre, L1
Doors open at 6 p.m.
The presentation begins at 6:30 p.m.

Panelists include:

Christine Ridarsky: Rochester City and Monroe County Historian

Paul B. Moyer—Professor of History at SUNY Brockport

Michael Jarvis, Professor of History at the University of Rochester

Panelists Bios

More about The American Revolution, premiering Sunday, November 16 on WXXI-TV
The American Revolution examines how America’s founding turned the world upside-down. Thirteen British colonies on the Atlantic Coast rose in rebellion, won their independence, and established a new form of government that radically reshaped the continent and inspired centuries of democratic movements around the globe.

An expansive look at the virtues and contradictions of the war and the birth of the United States of America, the film follows dozens of figures from a wide variety of backgrounds. Through their individual stories, viewers experience the war through the memories of the men and women who experienced it: the rank-and-file Continental soldiers and American militiamen (some of them teenagers), Patriot political and military leaders, British Army officers, American Loyalists, Native soldiers and civilians, enslaved and free African Americans, German soldiers in the British service, French and Spanish allies, and various civilians living in North America, Loyalist as well as Patriot, including many made refugees by the war.

The Revolution began a movement for people around the world to imagine new and better futures for themselves, their nations, and for humanity. It declared American independence with promises that we continue to strive for. The American Revolution opened the door to advance civil liberties and human rights, and it asked questions that we are still trying to answer today. 

Panelists Bios

Christine L. Ridarsky has served as Monroe County Historian since December 2024 and City of Rochester Historian since October 2008. She has bachelor’s degrees in Journalism & Mass Communication and Political Science from Kent State University, a master’s degree in American History from the State University of New York, College at Brockport, and is ABD toward a PhD in American History at the University of Rochester. She is co-editor of the Rochester History journal and co-editor of Susan B. Anthony and the Struggle for Equal Rights (University of Rochester Press, 2012).

Ridarsky has more than 20 years of experience in public history and archives, having served as Regional Archivist for the New York State Archives Documentary Heritage Program from 2002 to 2004 and as an archival consultant and professional historian since then. She has also taught history and writing courses at the University of Rochester and SUNY Brockport.

Ridarsky serves as a trustee and past president of the Association of Public Historians of New York State, the professional organization that represents the state’s 1,600+ government-appointed historians. She was a founding member and past chair of the National Council on Public History’s Government Historians Committee and currently serves on that organization’s Membership Committee.

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Paul B. Moyer is a Professor at SUNY Brockport and earned a PhD in History from the College of William & Mary in 1999. He received the SUNY Chancellor’s Awards for Teaching in 2007 and the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Scholarship in 2024. His areas of expertise include America’s colonial and revolutionary eras, and he teaches several courses on these periods, including one that focuses on the social and military contexts of the Revolutionary War. He has published numerous works, including the books Wild Yankees: The Struggle for Independence along Pennsylvania’s Revolutionary Frontier (Cornell, 2007), The Public Universal Friend: Jemima Wilkinson and Religious Enthusiasm in Revolutionary America (Cornell, 2015), and Detestable and Wicked Arts: New England and Witchcraft in the Early Modern Atlantic World (Cornell, 2020). Committed to public outreach, Dr. Moyer has given numerous talks at regional historical societies, libraries, and museums. In addition, he’s connected with national/international audiences through Historic Deerfield’s webinar series, National Public Radio’s podcast Throughlines, and newspaper and televised interviews.

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Michael Jarvis, Professor of History at the University of Rochester

Michael Jarvis is Professor of History at the University of Rochester and earned his PhD from the College of William and Mary in 1998. His research focuses on Bermuda, the Caribbean, West Africa, and the maritime Atlantic that connects them. His books include Isle of Devils, Isle of Saints: An Atlantic History of Bermuda, 1609-1684 and In The Eye Of All Trade: Bermuda, Bermudians, and the Maritime Atlantic, 1680-1783, which in part considers maritime aspects of the American Revolution and the critical contributions of Bermudian and Caribbean-based allies to the war’s successful outcome.
 
Mike is both an historian and an archaeologist; he teaches a broad range of classes on Early American, Atlantic, Maritime, Public, and Digital history and Historical Archaeology. This semester he is teaching a class on the American Revolution and is encouraging his students to think outside the Thirteen Colonies. He is an enthusiastic advocate of public history and has consulted on or contributed to numerous documentary films, heritage management plans, historic tours, and museum exhibits.