Previous Speakers

A Remarkable
Roster of Guest Speakers

2023-2024

Anne “Dede” Neal Petri, President/CEO The Olmsted Networks

The Genius of Place: A Look at the Legacy of Frederick Law Olmsted.”

Anthony A. Jack, PhD. Harvard professor.

The Privileged Poor: How Colleges Are Failing the Disadvantaged.

Catherine Grace Katz, Author.

The Daughters of Yalta: The Churchills, Roosevelts, and Harrimans – Love and War.

2022-2023

Dr. Lonnie Thompson and Dr. Ellen Mosley-Thompson, Climate researchers,

Icy Secrets and Retreating Glaciers: Past, Present and Future Societal Impacts.

Robert Wittman, Author and former FBI agent

The United States vs Art Thieves – True Tales from the FBI’s Real Indiana Jones.

Haben Girma, Disability justice advocate,

Haben: The first Deafblind person to graduate from Harvard Law School

2021-2022

Photography of Hope

Amy Vitale, National Geographic photographer.

Daniel Pink, Best-selling author

The Science of Regret and What it Teaches Us About the Good Life

Erica Armstrong Dunbar, Historian and author.

The Case for Harriet Tubman on the $20 Bill.

2020-2021

Kathy Sullivan, Scientist, educator, astronaut. "From the Stars to the Sea

An Explorers Life

Michael Duffy, Journalist, author, Opinions editor of the Washington Post. “What the November 3rd Election Means for Our Country.” Lisa Funderburke Hoffman. National arts leader, Director of the Alliance of Artists Communities. "The Future of the Creative Arts in a Diverse World."

2019-2020

Abby Smith Rumsey, Author, historian, Library of Congress National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program:

We Are What We

Remember

Curating Memory in the Digital Age.

Laurence C. Smith, Climate scientist and Guggenheim Fellow

The New North: The World We Are Making Neil Bush, Chairman of Points of Light Foundation, International Businessman, son of the 41st and brother of the 43rd Presidents of the United States. Cancelled due to the Coronavirus pandemic.

2018-2019

Andrew Zimbalist, Chair, Smith College Economics Department

The Economics of Collegiate Sports.

Robert Daly, Director, US China Studies, Wilson Institute

The Future of US China Relations.

Kathy Spahn, CEO, Helen Keller International

Be Brave: International NGOs and Healthcare.

2017-2018

Greg Harris

Rock and Roll: America's Greatest Revolution

Annette Gordon Reed, Harvard Professor and Pulitzer Prize Winning Author

Jefferson and the Hemmings.

Daryl Baldwin, Director, The Mayaamia Center

The Miami People and Their Language, Reclaiming an Endangered Treasure.

2016-2017

Kevin Kallaugher

Where to Draw the Line?

Mr. Greg Lukianoff - Campus Censorship

Unlearning Liberty and Freedom

Jill Tarter

The 21st Century: The Century of Biology on Earth and Beyond

2015-2016

Bob Orr

Evolving threats to America — foreign and domestic

Denis Belliveau

On the Trail of Marco Polo

Mary Norris

Between you and me, confessions of a comma queen

2014-2015

Benjamin Hufbauer Ph.D. America's Pyramids

Presidential libraries in the 20th and 21st centuries

Bonnie Magness-Gardiner

Missing a masterpiece?

Kenneth Feinberg

Putting a price on life

2013-2014

Rachel Moore

Why are there no black swans?

John Hall

The Importance of being civil

Nassir Ghaemi MD MPH

Between madness and greatness

2012 – 2013

Laurie Garrett

Betrayal of Trust: Critical Issues in Global Health

Matt Taibbi

Griftopia: Bubble Machines,Vampire Squids, and the Long Con that is Breaking Amercia

Chris Abani

Stories of Struggles, Stories of Hope: Art, Politics, and Human Rights

2011 – 2012

Susan Stamberg

Why Museums Matter/Why The Arts Are Important

David Eagleman

Incognito: the Secret Lives of the Brain

James M. McPherson

When will this cruel war be over?

2010-2011

Edward Humes

Eco Barons: The New Heroes of Environmental Activism

Lisa Shannon

A Thousand Sisters

Matt Bai

The Generational Changes in American Politics and Society: Obama and Beyond

2009-2010

Eleanor Clift

Inside Washington: Women in Politics and the Media

Andrea Elliott

Muslims in America

Annie Griffith Belt

A Camera, Two Kids, and a Camel

2008-2009

David Brancaccio

America Now - The Longview on Politics, Culture and Business

Michael Shermer

Why People Believe Weird Things - Science, Pseudoscience and the Paranormal

Charles Wheelan

Economic Priorities of the New Presidency (or What the heck is going on?)

2007 - 2008

Eric Foner

The Story of American Freedom, 1776-2007

Stephen Prothero

Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know...And Doesn't

Michio Kaku

The Physics of the Impossible

2006 - 2007

Lewis Lapham

The Role of Dissent in Vital Democracies: A Historical Perspective

Henry Petroski

Colum McCann

Wade Davis

Life at the Edge of the World

2005-2006

Spencer Wells:

The Journey of Man

Siegfried Hecker

The North Korean Nuclear Crisis

Mira Nair

Between Two Worlds

2004-2005

Salman Rushdie

Step Across This Line: An Evening with Salman Rusdie

Henry Greenspan

REMNANTS

Louise Leakey

Passion for Discovery: Continuing the Family Tradition

2003-2004

Stephen Pinker

The Blank Slate, The Modern Denial of Human Nature

Henry Petroski

Success and Failure in Engineering Design

William McGlaughlin

A Tale of Two Cities: Music in New York and Paris, 1892-1929.

2002-2003

Carl Djerassi

Sex and Fertilization: Ready for Divorce?

Judy Richardson

Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Lessons from the Civil Rights Movement

James Fallows

Iraq, What's Next?

2001-2002

Arthur Golden

The Deception of Fiction: A Novelist's Sleight of Hand

C. J. Peters

Emerging Infections and Society: Push and Pull

General Lewis Mackenzie

Message to America: Stay Off the Front Line of Peacekeeping

2000-2001

Anne Fadiman

What Kind of Reader Are You?

Jean Kirkpatrick

The Changing World: The New NATO, The Balkans and The Middle East

1999-2000

Stephen Jay Gould

Charles Darwin's Revolution in Human Thought

Anthony Lewis

The Press: Friend or Foe

Judah Folkman

The Best Laid Plans of Mice for Men and Women

1998-99

Richard Bangs

21st Century Exploration: Worldwide Expeditions Using the Internet as Ice Axe and Paddle

Brock Evans

Squandering Our "Real" Wealth

Philip Wilcox, Jr.

Terrorism: Strategic Threat or Psycho Drama

1997-98

Elliot Engle

The Charles Dickens We Never Knew

Charles Hermann

The Multi-Dimensional Legacy of George Bush: The Good, The Bad, and the Uncertain

Brian Urquhart

The United Nations and International Relations

1996-97

Mark Tushnet

The First Amendment into the 21st Century

Catherine Stimpson

Who Is Creative Now?

Elizabeth Langland

Jane Austen and the Silver Screen

1995-96

John Galvin

United States Strategy- -Post Cold War

Charles Gwathmey

Architecture: A Process of Discovery

David Warren

Riding the Tiger of Change

1994-95

Paul M. Kennedy

Reforming the United Nations: Problems and Opportunities

Patricia Neighmond

Whatever Happened to Health Care Reform? Medicine and Politics in the United States

Robert P. Kirshner

Taking the Measure of the Universe

1993-94

Paul E. Peterson

Intergenerational Conflict: Should Children have the Right to Vote?

Anna Kisselgof

The Arts in the 21st Century

Martin Marty

Uncommon Faiths and the Common Good: Religion and American Multiculturalism Today

1992-93

James O. Freedman

Higher Education and the Promise of American Life

Charlotte Ray

An Evening with Charlotte Ray

Jerrold M. Post

The Mind of the Terrorist

1991-92

Edward L. Warner III

The Disintegration of the Soviet Union: Is the Sum of the Parts Greater than the Whole?

Bernard C. Watson

Changes and Choices: Are We Prepared to Face Reality?

John E. Frohnmeyer

The War on Culture

1990-91

Lisbeth Schorr

The Anomaly of an American Underclass: What Can Be Done?

John Seigenthaler

Freedom of the Press: A 200 Year Old Luxury or Liability?

Helen Thomas

Watchdog at the White House: Covering Presidents from Kennedy to Bush

1989-90

Howard Nemerov

A Reading of His Poems with Informal Comments

John Brooks Slaughter

Putting Integrity Back into Athletics

S. Frederick Starr

Is the Soviet Union Collapsing? If so, What Then?

1988-89

Diana Eck

Religion at the Crossroads: The Challenge of Religious Diversity Today

Charles Kaiser

1968 In America

Paul Goldberger

Buildings Versus Cities: The Struggle for a Sense of Place

1987-88

Michael Duffy

A Reporter in Washington: Stumbling Through the Mine Field

Lee H. Hamilton

The Iran-Contra Affair as Viewed by the Co-Chairman of the Investigative Committee

Seyned H. Nasr

The Islamic World View: Sunni and Shia

1986-87

Heywood Hale Broun

The Art of Winning

Charles Murray

New Perspectives on Social Policy

Sherman Lee

The Significance of Far Eastern Art

1985-86

Roger Fisher

Negotiating with the Russians: What would be a Successful Summit?

Peter Eisenman

The State of Architecture

Albert Shanker

The Future of American Education: What Direction Will We Take?

1984-85

Strobe Talbott

Nuclear Arms Control: The Current Stalemate and the Prospect for the Future

James Q. Wilson

Private Virtue and the Public Good

James S. Trefil

The Moment of Creation

1983-84

Jonathan B. Gans

The Middle East

Robert Hughes

The Face of Power: Art, Politics and Propaganda

Mouza Coutelais-du-Roche Zumwalt

China Revisited

1982-83

John Cairney and Alannah O'Sullivan

Two for a Theatre

Robert J. Ryan, Jr.

Caribbean Basin Initiative

Donald C. Johanson

In Search of Man's Origins

1981-82

Iris Love

Archaeology Today

Alfred Kahn

Solving the Economic Issues of the Eighties

Joseph Engelberger

Robotics: An Executive Overview

1980-81

La Condesa de

Romanones y Quintanilla: - American Women in International Politics

Jack Reynolds

Asia Today

Daniel Bell

The U.S. in the 1980's: The Problems Ahead

1979-80

Francis Robinson

The Night the Opera Stopped

David Halberstam

The Media-ization of America

Walter Sullivan

Black Holes - The Edge of Space, The End of Time

1978-79

John Cairney

The Robert Burns Story

William H. Webster

Tasking the FBI in a Free Society

Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr

The World and Regional Tensions

1977-78

Hedrick Smith

The Texture of Russian Life

Helmut Sonnenfelt

An Appraisal of our Foreign Policy

David Atlee Phillips

Secret Intelligence: An American Dilemma

1976-77

Richard Adams

Education for Literature

Rosamond Bernier

Great Artists in Close-up

Willard R. Johnson

The American Stake in the Achievement of Freedom in Southern Africa

1975-76

Winston S. Churchill

The Soviet Threat in the Middle East and Western Europe

John R. Silber

Bicentennial Reflections on the No-Fault Life

Alexander Scourby

An Evening with Alexander Scourby

1974-75

Duncan Williams

Trousered Apes: Sick Literature in a Sick Society

Dixie Lee Ray

U.S. Involvement in Science and Technology

S. Dillon Ripley

Facing Problems of the Environment

1973-1974

Thomas Hoving

Present and Future Developments at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Joseph C. Harsch

State of the Nations

Max Lerner and R. Buckly

Will the American Republic Survive Into the 21st Century?

1972-73

Ross Terrill: China Today

A Firsthand Account

Barbara Ward Jackson

Basic Conditions for Tomorrow's World

Richard Wilbur

A Reading of His Poems with Commentary

1971-72

Jon M. Lindbergh

The Oceans: Conservation or Exploration?

Carl M. Loeb, Jr

Victims of Crime - All Honest Victims

Daniel Patrick Moynihan

The American Presidency

1970-71

Lord Caradon

What Hope for Peace in the Middle East?

Rene Dubos

The Living Past

Pierre Berton

Why Canadians are Different

1969-70

Harrison Salisbury

America, Russia, China. Triple Alliance or Three-way War?

Willie Morris

The National Magazine in American Life Today

John Archibald Wheeler

A Few Glimpses of an Open World

1968-69

Morris B. Abrams

The University in the Vortex

Lord Harlech

Great Decisions, 1969

Archibald MacLeish

Readings and Reflections

1967-68

Emlyn Williams

Dylan Thomas Growing Up

Henry Steele Commager

Was America a Mistake?

Malcolm Muggeridge

English and Americans

1966-67

William Mauldin

Political Satire and the Cartoonist

E. O. Reischauer

United States, Japan and Asia

Marietta Tree

Internationalism versus Nationalism

1965-66

Phillip Burton and Christian Alderson

Pageant of Kings

David Schoenbrun

The Three Lives of Charles DeGaule

Nelson Gleuck: Deities and Dolphins

The Story of the Nabataens

1964-65

William Patterson

A Profile of Holmes

Alfred Kazin

The Fascination of Henry Adams

John Kenneth Galbraith

A Modern Foreign Policy

1963-64

Terence Hanbury White

The Pleasure of Learning

Pierre Mendes-France

A Modern Conception of Democracy

Cleveland Amory

Who Killed Society?

1962-63

Aldous Huxley

Human Potentiality

Dexter Perkins

Reflections on the Foreign Policy of a Democracy

Cilli Wang

The World of Cilli Wang

1961-62

C. P. Snow and Pamela

Personal Views of the Two Cultures Hansford Johnson

Santha Rama Rau

New Voices of the Far East

Henry Kissinger

Strategy and Foreign Policy

1960-61

Dorothy Stickney

Portrait of Edna St. Vincent Millay

Anthony Wedgewood Benn

A Britisher Looks at the African Revolution

Arthur Larson

World Rule of Law

1959-60

Margaret Webster

An Evening with George Bernard Shaw

Madam Pandit

Eastern Ideas and Western Values

Paul Tillich

The Meaning of Health

1958-59

John Gielgud

The Ages of Man

K. C. Wu

An Appraisal of Red China

J. B. Glubb

The Middle East: Storm Center of the World

1957-58

Catherine Drinker Bowen

A Biographer Looks for News

Walter Sullivan

South Pole

Peter Viereck

The Unadjusted Man: A New Hero for Americans

1956-57

Hubert W. Alyea

Atomic Energy - Weapon for Peace

Barbara Ward

The Unity of the Free World

Robert Frost

An Evening with Robert Frost

1955-56

Henry Hull

An Evening with Mark Twain

George E. Mylonas

Mycenae. The Capital City of Agamemnon

Hans Kohn

Is Modern Western Civilization in Decline?

1954-55

Ruth Draper

A Program of Original Sketches

J. W. Fulbright

The United States and World Affairs

Hanson Baldwin

Danger from the East

1953-54

Joyce Cary

A Novel as a Picture of Society

Erwin D. Canham

Business at Bat: In Washington and on Main Street

John C. Caldwell

Our Program Toward Asia

1952-53

Robert Ruark

Life Among the Curious Natives of America

Carlos Romulo

America's Stake in the Far East

Margaret Mead

Anthropology in Action

Lydia Kirk

Life in Russia Today

1951-52

Edward Weeks

In the Editor's Chair

Jan Papanek

United Nations Report

Paul Bigelow Sears

What Kind of a Country Do We Want?

1950-51

Edith and Osbert Sitwell

Readings from Their Own Poems

Arthur Schlesinger, Jr

The Crisis of Our Time

James Michener

The Real South Pacific

1949-50

Mark F. Ethridge

The Middle East

Mary Garden

Music - Yesterday and Today

David E. Lilienthal

Atomic Energy for Peace

1948-49

Norman Cousins

The Seige of Berlin

Robert Magidoff

Report on Russia Today

Finn Ronne

Antartica Adventure

1947-48

Harlow Shapley

The One World of Science

Herbert Agar

England Today

Cord Meyer, Jr

World Federation or World War III?

1946-47

Walter Duranty and Debate

Can Russia Be Part of One World?

H.R. Knickerbocker

Sumner Slichter

The Problem of Industrial Relations

Eve Curie

France in the Postwar World

1945-46

R.V.C. Bodley

The Truth About the Arabs

Owen Lattimore

A Practicable Treatment of Japan

John Farrar

The Development of American Writing Between Two Wars

Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr

The National Outlook

1944-45

Reinhold Niebuhr

The End of an Era

Maria Osmena

The Heart of the Philippines

Frank Lloyd Wright

The Architecture of Democracy

1943-44

Otto Tolischus

History in Action

Michael Karpovich

Russia and the Postwar World

Robert St. John

The Balkans, Powder Keg of Europe

Alexander Loudon

Some Postwar Problems

1942-43

Walter Duranty

When East Meets West in Battle

Francis B. Sayre

The Road Forward

Hermann Rauschning

The Secret Aim of National Socialism

Cornelia Otis Skinner

Character Sketches

1941-42

Hugh R. Wilson

America's Role in the World Crisis

J. R. Ybarra

Friends and Foes in Latin America

Hallett Abend

How We Can Beat the Japanese

Margaret Bourke-White

Lenses Behind the News

1940-41

H. R. Knickerbocker

At the Ringside of History

Margaret Webster

Shakespeare without Tears

William L. Shirer

German Toda

Robert A. Millikan

Science and War

1939-40

Ernest A. Hooten

An Anthropologist Looks at the Belligerants

Alfred Duff Cooper

The Survival of Liberty

Erwin Edman

Fashions in Ideas

Hugh Gibson

An American Diplomat's Approach to Present European Problems

1938-39

Paul Van Zeeland

How Can International Disorganization Be Remedied?

Bhicoo Batlivala

Influence of the West on Ancient Indian Culture

John Gunther

Inside Europe Now

Andre Maurois

French Wit, English-American Humor

1937-38

Mai-Mai Sze

Modern Woman in China

Victor Heiser

More of an American Doctor's Odyssey

John Langdon-Davies

Behind the Spanish Barricades

Sinclair Lewis

It Has Happened Here

1936-37

Andre Geraud

Can European Peace be Saved?

Gordon Enders

The Story of Tibet

Clifton Fadiman

Why Best Sellers Sell

E. M. Delafield

The Provincial Lady in Moscow

1935-36

Asgeir Asgeirson

My Country (Iceland) and Its People

Paul Horgan

The Fault of Angels

Robert M. Hutchins

Education in Time of Crisis

Sarah Wambaugh

Europe, What Now?

1934-35

Thomas Craven

Modern Art

Ernest Gruening

Democracy's Challenge to Fascism and Communism

Carl E. Guthe

The Greeks of the New World

Cyril A. Alington

The English Public Schools

1933-34

Raymond Ditmars

Strange Animals I Have Known

R. D. Blumenfeld

The Destiny of America and Great Britain

Clemence Dane

Drama in Life and On the Stage

P.F.M. Fellowes

The Conquest of Everest

1932-33

Margit Bethlen

History in the Making and Personalities Who Made It

William Butler Yeats

The New Ireland

Victoria Sackville-West

Changes in English Social Life

Auguste Piccard

The World From Ten Miles Up

1931-32

Rafael Sabatini

Fiction in History and History in Fiction

Oliver R. Baldwin

The Future of British Politics

Stuart Chase

The End of an Epoch?

Joseph Wood Krutch

The Modern Theatre

1930-31

Randolph Churchill

Can Youth Be Conservative?

Richard E. Byrd

The South Pole Expedition

George E. Russell (AE)

Some Personalties of Modern Ireland

J. B. Priestley

An Englishman's View of Contemporary American Literature

1929-30

Grand Duke Alexander

Out of My Life

Ernest Dimnet

The Art of Thinking

Lowell Thomas

With Lawrence in Arabia and Allenby in Palestine

1928-29

Arthur Compton

What Things are Made Of

Angna Enters

A Series of Pantomines

Cornelia Otis Skinner

Character Sketches

Thornton Wilder

The Bridge of San Luis Rey

1927-28

Bertrand Russell

European Chaos

William Beebe

Beneath Tropic Seas

Emil Ludwig

Bismarck and the German Republic

Sherwood Picking

Submarines and Their Operation

1926-27

Richard E. Byrd

First Flight to North Pole

Phillip Guedalla

The Political and Industrial Situation in England Samuel Arthur King and Readings accompanied by Piano Horace Alwyne

Michael I. Pupin

Fifty Years Progress in Electrical Communication

1925-26

Alexander Wolcott

Behind the Scenes

Manley O. Hudson

The League of Nations in 1925

Timothy Smiddy

Ideals and Activities of the Irish Free State

Thomas F. Lee

Dons, Dictators and Duenas

1924-25

Catherine Karoly

Hungary Yesterday and Today

Performance

Von Flotow's Opera "L'Ombre"

Andre Morize

(Unavailable)

John Cowper Powys

(Unavailable)

1923-24

Lord Birkenhead

Reminiscences of an English Statesman

Arthur Weigal

Tutankhamen, Recent Discovery in Egypt

Henry Fairfield Osborn

Social and Racial Progress in America

J. C. Faunthorpe

Jungle Life in India

1922-23

Emma C. Ponafidine

My Experiences in Soviet Russia

Basil Thomson

My Experiences at Scotland Yard

Olivia R. Agresti

Recent Developments in European History

Ruano Boglislav

Singing of Gypsy and Hungarian Songs

1921-22

William Beebe

Pheasant Hunting in Borneo and India

Isaac Marcosson

The World in Transition

Margot Asquith

Reminiscences of Eminent Englishmen

Bruno Roselli: Dante

A Replica of the Typical Italian

1920-21

W. L. George

Love and Marriage

Herbert A. Gibbons

The Challenge to European Eminent Domain

G. K. Chesterton

The Ignorance of the Educated

Mr. and Mrs. Ongawa

Performance of Japanese Songs and Dances

1920

John Drinkwater

Abraham Lincoln

Stephen Graham

The Genius of the Russian People

Hugh Walpole

Modern English Novelist

Nina Tarasova

Singing of Russian Folk Songs in Costume