Past Lecturers
2024: Henry Louis Gates Jr.
2023: Doris Kearns Goodwin
2022: Maya Lin
The Humanities at the Intersection of Art and Architecture
2021: Sir Richard Sorabji
Human Affiliation in a Season of Suffering
2019: Williams & McCann
Creativity in the Humanities
2018: Ken Burns
An Afternoon with Ken Burns
2017: Isabel Wilkerson
The Warmth of Other Suns
2016: David McCullough
The Incomparable Advantage of Intellectual Curiosity
2015: Jay Parini
Middlebury College: "Writing Jesus: Issues and Challenges in Telling the Christ Story"
2014: Amy Tan
New York Times Bestselling Author: "An Afternoon with Amy Tan"
2013: Timothy Egan
Writer: "The Worst Hard Times"
2012: Anne Fadiman
Writer and Teacher: "Bacon as Bookmarks: Engrossed in the Love of Reading"
2011: John Patrick Shanley
Writer and Director: "The Art of the Playwright"
2010: Dana Gioia
Poet and former Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts: "Why Culture Matters"
2009: Dr. Anthony Grafton
Princeton University: "Worlds Made By Words: Scholarship and Community in the Modern West"
2008: Dr. Robert Sapolsky
Stanford University: "Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers"
2007: Taylor Branch
Author and Historian: "Myth and Miracles from the King Years"
2006: Azar Nafisi
Author, Visiting Professor, Johns Hopkins University: "Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books"
2005: Alexander McCall Smith
University of Edinburgh: "An Afternoon with Alexander McCall Smith"
2004: Robert Fagles
Princeton University: "An Afternoon's Odyssey with Robert Fagles"
2003: Dr. Eleonore Stump
Saint Louis University: "Faith and the Problem of Evil"
2002: Shelby Foote
Novelist and Historian: "The Novelist as Historian"