University and Messenger Lectures (1960-Present)
For a listing of lectures from 1924 to 1960, click here.
| Name | Lecture Title | Date | |
|---|---|---|---|
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Scott de la Hunta '84 Research Fellow, ARTI Group, Amsterdam School of the Arts |
"The Choreographic Resource: Technologies for Interpreting Dance" | F'08 |
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Shelia Jasanoff Professor of Science & Technology Studies, Harvard University |
"After Enlightenment: Rethinking Science's Place in Democracy" | F'08 |
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Garry Wills Professor, Northwestern University, Pulitzer Prize Winning Author |
"Lincoln-Douglas Debates (1858), One Hundred Fifty Years Later (2008)" | F'08 |
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Marita Sturken Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication, New York University |
"Consuming Security: Defensive Design in the Comfort Culture of Everyday Life" | F'08 |
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Anselm Haverkamp Professor of English and Director of the Poetics & Theory Program, New York University |
"To Conceive of, in Pictures: Episodes from the History of Knowledge" | S '08 |
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Robert Duke Professor in Music & Human Learning, University of Texas, Austin |
"Why Don't Students Learn What We Think We Teach" | S '08 |
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Nancy Fraser Professor of Philosophy and Politics, The New School of Social Research |
"Disputing the Subject of Justice: National Citizenry, Global Humanity, or Transnational Community of Risk?" | S '08 |
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Michel Balinski Professor Emeritus, Ecole Polytechnique, Paris | "Representing, Electing, and Ranking" | F '07 |
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Mandyam Srinivasan Professor of Visual Neuroscience, Queensland Brain Institute, University of Queensland |
"Small Brains, Smart Minds: Vision, Navigation, and 'Cognition' in Honeybees and Applications to Robotics" | F '07 |
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Speciosa Wandira former Ugandan Vice President | "Achieving Freedom from Hunger, Poverty, and Poor Health in Sub-Saharan Africa: Priorities for Research and Public Policy | F '07 |
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Sir Martin Rees Astronomer Royal, University of Cambridge, UK |
"Science and Survival in the 21st Century" | S '05 |
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Francis Fukuyama Johns Hopkins University |
"The State After September 11" | S '03 |
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Janet Halley Harvard Law School |
"Sexuality Harassment/Same Sex Marriage" | F '01 |
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Norman Myers Consultant in Environment & Development |
"Environmental and Conservation Issues for the New Millenium" | S '01 |
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David J.P. Barker University of Southampton |
"Early Life Experiences and Adult Disease" | F '00 |
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Gerald R. Fink Director, Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research |
"We're Off to See the Genome" | S '99 |
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Judith Butler Chancellor's Professor, University of California at Berkeley |
"Psychoanalysis, Politics, and Kinship" | F '98 |
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Hon. Rex Nettleford Dpty. Vice Chancellor & Prof. of Continuing Studies, Univ. of W. Indies, Mona, Jamaica |
"Cultural Identity and Development: A Caribbean Perspective" | F '97 |
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Byron S.J. Weng Prof. of Government & Public Administration, Chinese Univ. of Hong Kong |
"China's One Country, Two Systems' Policy and Its Implications for Sino-American Relations" | F '96 |
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Clifton R. Wharton Frmr. Deputy Secretary of State |
"Presidential Politics and Foreign Policy: Diminishing America's Global Stature" | S '96 |
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Helen Vendler Professor of English, Harvard University |
"Shakespeare's Sonnets" | F '95 |
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Ross Chambers Prof. of French and Comparative Literature, University of Michigan |
"Aspects of Literature" | S '95 |
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Leo Bersani Class of 1950 Professor of French, University of California at Berkeley |
"Homos" | F '94 |
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Martha Nussbaum University Professor & Professor of Philosophy and Classics, Brown University |
"Upheavals of Thought: A Theory of the Emotions" | S '94 |
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Ronald Takaki Professor of Ethnic Studies, University of California at Berkeley |
"A Past Re-Visioned: The Making of Multicultural America" | F '93 |
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Bruno Latour Professor at the Ecole National Superieure des Mines, Paris |
"From Baboons to Nuclear Plants: A Common Geneaology for Technology and Society" | S'93 |
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Peter Brooks Professor of Humanities, Yale University |
"The Place of the Body in Modern Narrative" | F '92 |
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Maynard Solomon Professor of Music, Julliard |
"Mozart: A Family Portrait" | S '92 |
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Terrence Sejnowski Professor of Biology & Physics, UCSD and the Salk Institute |
"The Computational Brain" | F '91 |
  |
John & Jean Comaroff Professors of Anthropology, University of Chicago |
"Christianity, Colonialism, and Consciousness in South Africa" | S '91 |
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Sir Roger Penrose Professor of Mathematics, Oxford University |
"Three Worlds and Three Mysteries" | F '90 |
| Myles Burnyeat Senior Research Fellow, All Souls College, UK |
"Freedom, Anger, and Tranquility: An Archeaology of Feeling" | S '90 | |
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Susan Moller Okin Professor of Politics, Brandeis University |
"The Public/Domestic Dichotomy" | F '89 |
| Peter H. Nye Professor Emeritus, Plant Science, Oxford University |
"Towards the Quantitative Control of Crop Production and Quality" | S '89 | |
| Bert Vallee Professor of Biochemical and Biophysical Sciences & Medicine, Harvard University |
"How Zinc Affects Biology and Medicine and the Fundamentals of Our Lives" | F '88 | |
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Houston Baker Professor of English & Human Relations, University of Pennsylvania |
"Workings of the Spirit: The Poetics of Afro-American Women's Writing" | S '88 |
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Baron Carl Friedrich von Weizsacker Emeritus Professor of Physics & Philosophy, Universities of Munich & Hamburg |
"Philosophical and Political Consequences of Modern Science" | F '87 |
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Charles Tilly Professor of Sociology & History, New School for Social Research |
"War, States, and Collection Action" | S '87 |
| Irving Janis Professor of Psychology, Yale University |
"Crisis Decision-Making in the Nuclear Age" | F '86 | |
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Edward Said Professor of English & Comparative Literature, Columbia University |
"Culture and Imperialism" | S '86 |
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Ernst Mayr Professor Emeritus, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University |
"Evolutionary Biology and Philosophy" | F '85 |
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John E. Casida Professor of Entomology, University of California at Berkeley |
"Retrospective and Prospect Views on Chemicals, Man, and the Environment" | S '85 |
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Jurgen Habermas Director, Max Planck Institute, Munich |
"Discourse on Modernity" | F '84 |
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Herbert York Professor of Physics, University of California, San Diego |
"The Nuclear Arms Race" | S '84 |
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Quentin Skinner Professor of Political Science, University of Cambridge, UK |
"The Idea of Liberty: Classical and Contemporary Perspectives" | F' 83 |
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Maarten Brands Professor of Modern History, University of Amsterdam |
"Re-Inventing Europe" | S '83 |
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Paul de Man Professor of French & Comparative Literature, Yale University |
"Rhetoric Aesthetics" | S '83 |
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John T. Noonan, Jr Professor of Law, University of California at Berkeley |
"Bribery" | S '82 |
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Patrick Suppes Professor of Philosophy, Stanford University |
"Rationality" | F '81 |
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Donald Kennedy President, Stanford University |
"Health, Science, and Regulation" | F '80 |
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Rosemary Cramp Professor of Art & Archaeology, Durham University, UK |
"The Viking Achievement" | F '80 |
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Robert J. Lifton Professor of Psychiatry, Yale University |
"From Healer to Killer: The Doctors of Auschwitz" | S '80 |
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Walter J. Ong Professors of English & Humanities in Psychiatry, Saint Louis University |
"Contest, Sexuality, and Consciousness" | F '79 |
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Marvin Minsky Professor of Science, Computer Science Dept., MIT |
"The Construction of the Mind" | S '79 |
| Arthur Kantrowitz Chairmain, AVCO-Everett Research Laboratory, Inc. |
"A Technologist Looks at Anti-Technology" | F' 78 | |
| Jean Seznec Professor of French Literature, University of Oxford |
"Revival and Metamorphoses of the Gods in Nineteenth Century Art and Literature" | S '78 | |
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David Grene Professor of Social Thought, University of Chicago |
"Shakespeare: Politics, History, and Poetry" | F '77 |
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Rene Girard Professor of French & the Humanities, Johns Hopkins University |
"Sacrifice, Symbolic Thought and Judeo-Christian Culture" | S '77 |
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Noam Chomsky Professor of Linguistics & Philosophy, MIT |
"Concepts of Language" | F '76 |
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Edward O. Wilson Professor of Zoology, Harvard University |
"Sociobiology" | S '76 |
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Walle J.H. Nauta Professor of Psychology, MIT |
"Mammalian Behavior and the Anatomy of the Brain" | F '75 |
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Charles Rosen Pianist & Writer |
"Music and the Perspectives of Historical Criticism" | S '75 |
| Zhores Medvedev Soviet Biologist & Critic |
"Intellectual Dissent in the Soviet Union" | S '74 | |
| Harry Bober Professor of the Humanities, New York University |
"Celtic Illuminated Manuscripts: Enigmas and Mysteries" | S'74 | |
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Elting Morison Killian Professor of th Class of 1926, MIT |
"Toward a Technologically Fixed Society" | S '73 |
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Garrett Hardin Professor of Biology, University of California at Santa Barbara |
"The Value and Dignity of Life" | F '72 |
| C.T. deWit Professor of Theoretical Production Ecology, Agricultural University, the Netherlands |
"Theoretical Production Ecology: An Attempt Toward Integration" | S '72 | |
| David Daube Professor of Law, University of California at Berkeley |
"Civil Disobedience in Antiquity" | F '71 | |
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Jerzy Neyman Professor of Statistics, University of California at Berkeley |
"A Statistician's Experience in Three Domains of Science: Astronomy, Cancer, and Weather Modification" | S '71 |
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Oswei Temkin Professor of the History of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University |
"Galenism: Rise and Decline of a Medical Philosophy" | F '70 |
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Yigael Yadin Professor of Archaeology, Hebrew University, Jerusalem |
"From the Hasmoneans to Bar-Kochba: Archaelogical Findings and Finds in the Wilderness of Judea" | F '69 |
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Samuel H. Beer Professor of Government, Harvard University |
"The Politics of American Federalism" | F '69 |
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Michel Jouvet, M.D. Faculty of Medicine, University of Lyons, France |
"Sleep and Dreams" | F '68 |
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Henry Eyring Professor of Chemistry & Metallurgy, University of Utah |
"The Scientific Models We Live By" | S '68 |
| Dame Helen Louise Gardner Professor of English Literature, University of Oxford, UK |
"Shakespeare's Tragic Art" | F '67 | |
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Madame Jacqueline de Romilly Professor of Greek, The Sorbonne |
"Aspects of Time in Greek Tragedy" | S '67 |
| A. Frey-Wyssling Department of General Botany & Electron Microscopy, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology |
"Ultra-Structural Cell Organization" | F '65 | |
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Richard Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics, California Institute of Technology |
"The Character of Physical Law" | F '64 |
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C. Vann Woodward Professor of History, Yale University |
"The First Reconstruction in Light of the Second" | S '64 |
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Kingsley Davis Professor of Sociology, University of California at Berkeley |
"New Perspectives on Population: Change and Response in Modern Demographic History" | F '63 |
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H.L.A. Hart Professor of Jurisprudence, University of Oxford, UK |
"Mind and Deed in the Law" | S '63 |
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Alexander Hollaender Director, Biology Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory |
"Some Basic Problems in Radiation Biology" | F '62 |
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Harry Harlow Professor of Psychology, University of Wisconsin |
"The Nature of Love and Affection in Primates" | F '61 |
| William Haller Professor of English, Barnard College, Columbia University |
"The Elect Nation on Puritanism Reconsidered" | S '61 | |
 |
Meyer Shapiro Professor of Fine Arts, Columbia University |
"Abstract Painting" | S '60 |
University and Messenger Lectures (1924-1960)
1960-1961
Frey Hoyle, Astronomy, University of Cambridge
1959-1960
Linus Pauling, Chemistry, California Institute of Technology
1959-1960
Arthur F. Burns, Economics, Columbia University
1958-1959
V. B. Wigglesworth, Zoology, University of Cambridge
1957-1958
G. Pontecorvo, Genetics, University of Glasgow
1957-1958
Paul Tillich, Religion, Harvard University
1956-1957
K.C. Guthrie, Classics, University of Cambridge
1956-1957
Alfred L. Kroeber, Anthropology, University of California
1955-1956
Edward C. Kirkland, History, Bowdoin College
1955-1956
Arthur J. Altmeyer, Louis I. Dublin, Edward J. Stieglitz, Gerontology
1954-1955
Phillip H. Kuenan, Submarine Geology, Gronigen, the Netherlands
1954-1955
Alpheus T. Mason, Government, Princeton University
1953-1954
Luther Gulick, Public Administration, New York
1953-1954
C. B. Van Niel, Bacteriology, Stanford University
1952-1953
Joseph Wood Krutch, Drama, Columbia University
1952-1953
Theodore von Karman, Engineering, California Institute of Technology
1951-1952
Otto Struve, Astronomy, Yerkes Observatory
1951-1952
Robert Redfield, Anthropology, University of Chicago
1950-1951
W. F. Albright, Archaeology, Johns Hopkins University
1950-1951
Thomas A. Bailey, Russian-American Relations, Stanford University
1950-1951
J. C. Clausen, Botany, Stanford University
1949-1950
Otto Neugebauer, History of Mathematics, Brown University
1949-1950
Vincent du Vigneaud, Biochemistry, Cornell Medical College
1948-1949
Otto Kinkeldey, Musicology, Harvard University
1948-1949
Harvey Fletcher, Acoustics, Bell Telephone Laboratories
1947-1948
Howard Mumford Jones, American Literature, Harvard University
1947-1948
Catherine Bauer, Housing, University of Cambridge
1947-1948
Marjorie Nicolson, English Literature, Columbia University
1946-1947
Sumner Slichter, Economics, Harvard University
1945-1946
Hu Shih, History of Chinese Philosophy, Peking
1945-1946
J. R. Oppenheimer, Atomic Physics, California Inst. Of Technology
1945-1946
C. C. Little, L. H. Snyder, H. J. Muller, Gene
1944-1945
Douglas Bush, English Literature, Harvard University
1944-1945
T. R. McConnell, W. H. Cowley, W. DeVane, Higher Education
1944-1945
Charles E. Kellogg, Agronomy, U.S. Department of Agriculture
1944-1945
Lydia J. Roberts, Nutrition, University of Chicago
1943-1944
Griffith Taylor, Geography, Toronto
1942-1943
Carl Becker, Cornell History, Cornell University
1942-1943
H. Peyre, French Literature, Yale University
1941-1942
H. M. Evans, Endocrinology, University of California
1941-1942
T. M. River and others, Virus Diseases, Rockefeller Institute
1940-1941
F. A. Pottle, Modern Poetry, Yale University
1940-1941
H. E. Sigerist, History of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University
1939-1940
T. D. Kendrick, Archaeology, British Museum
1938-1939
G. P. Adams, Philosophy, University of California
1938-1939
G. H. McIlwain, History of Political Theory, Harvard University
1937-1938
E. J. Dent, Musicology, University of Cambridge
1936-1937
Isiah Bowman, Geography, Johns Hopkins University
1936-1937
Robert Hegner, Parasitology, Johns Hopkins University
1935-1936
W. M. Calder, History of Christianity, University of Edinburgh
1934-1935
W. C. Mitchell, Economics, Columbia University
1933-1934
Sir Arthur Eddington, Astronomy, University of Cambridge
1932-1933
B. Malinowski, Anthropology, London
1931-1932
F. J. Mather, Fine Arts, Princeton University
1930-1931
T. H. Morgan, Genetics, California Institute of Technology
1929-1930
Roscoe Pound, Law, Harvard University
1928-1929
E. L. Thorndike, Psychology, Columbia University
1927-1928
T. F. Tout, English History, Manchester
1926-1927
H. J. C. Grierson, English Literature, University of Edinburgh
1925-1926
R. A. Milliken, Physics, California Institute of Technology
1924-1925
J. H. Breasted, Ancient History, Chicago
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