Stanford Humanities Center
The Presidential Lectures bring distinguished scholars, artists, and critics to the Stanford campus for lectures, seminars, panel discussions, and a variety of interactions with faculty, students, and the community at large.
Pictured: Saidiya Hartman, 2022
2022-2023
Saidiya V. Hartman, English, Columbia University
"Graces of the Unsung"
October 27, 2022
2021-2022
Timothy Snyder, History, Yale University
"The Five Forms of Freedom"
October 19, 2021
2020-2021
Achille Mbembe, University of the Witwatersrand
"Future of Life & Futures of Reason"
October 20, 2020
2018-2019
Zadie Smith, Novelist and Essayist
"In Conversation with Harry Elam"
March 7, 2019
2017-2018
Siddhartha Mukherjee, Pulitzer Prize-winning author
"Notes from the Edge of an Experiment (or Cancer's Anxieties)"
May 9, 2018
2016-2017
Junot Díaz, Pulitzer Prize-winning author
"An Evening with Junot Díaz"
May 24, 2017
2015-2016
Marilynne Robinson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author
"The American Scholar Now"
October 29, 2015
2014-2015
David Adjaye, award–winning architect
"Designing the Architecture of Civic Space"
December 2, 2014
2012-2013
Michael Ignatieff, University of Toronto
"On Partisanship: Enemies and Adversaries in Politics"
October 15, 2012
2011-2012
Helen Vendler, Harvard University
"Wallace Stevens as an American Poet"
January 17, 2012
2010-2011
Leon Botstein, President of Bard College, Music Director of the American Symphony Orchestra
"Music Between Nature and Architecture"
April 26, 2011
Judith Jamison, Choreographer and Artistic Director, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
"An Evening With Judith Jamison"
January 10, 2011
Robert Putnam, Harvard University
"American Grace: The Changing Role of Religion in America"
November 15, 2010
2009-2010
Mary Robinson, Founder of Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative; President of Ireland, 1990-1997; United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, 1997-2002
"Human Rights Strategies in the 21st Century"
April 12, 2010
André Aciman, City University of New York (CUNY)
"Parallax: Exile as Metaphor"
October 19, 2009
2008-2009
James M. McPherson, Princeton University
"But There Was No Peace: The Aftermath of the Civil War"
April 13, 2009
Daniel C. Dennett, Tufts University
"The Evolution of 'Why' as the Key to Free Will"
January 12, 2009
Seyla Benhabib, Yale University
"Cosmopolitan Norms, Human Rights, and Democratic Iterations"
October 27, 2008
Robert Wilson, Theater Director and Visual Artist
"1. Have You Been Here Before 2. No This Is The First Time, An Evening with Robert Wilson"
October 1, 2008
2007-2008
Marina Warner, University of Essex, UK
"The Voice of the Toy: Writing Magic and Enchanted States"
April 14, 2008
Richard Taruskin, University of California, Berkeley
"Shall We Change the Subject? A Music Historian Reflects"
March 3, 2008
Partha Chatterjee, Columbia University
"The Black Hole of Empire"
November 7, 2007
Simon Schama, Columbia University
"The Abolition of the Slave Trade Two Hundred Years On- America and Britain: Two Diverging Destinies?"
October 29, 2007
2006-2007
Joan W. Scott, Institute for Advanced Study
"Cover-Up: French Gender Equality and the Islamic Headscarf"
April 30, 2007
Talal Asad, City University of New York (CUNY)
"Thinking About Blasphemy and Secular Criticism"
October 9, 2006
2005-2006
Amy Gutmann, President, University of Pennsylvania
"Extremism"
April 24, 2006
Douglas Hofstadter, Indiana University, Bloomington
"Analogy as the Core of Cognition"
February 6, 2006
Lani Guinier, Harvard University
"Wealth, Race, and Merit in Higher Education"
October 31, 2005
2004-2005
Carolyn Abbate, Musicologist
"Overlooking the Ephemeral"
May, 2005
Merce Cunningham, Dancer/Choreographer
"Merce Cunningham in Conversation with John Rockwell"
March 9, 2005
Kwame Anthony Appiah, Princeton University
"The Ethics of Identity"
November, 2004
2003-2004
Isabel Allende, Author
"A Sense of Place"
May, 2004
Wendy Doniger, University of Chicago
"Self-Imitation in Ancient India, Shakespeare, and Hollywood"
February 23, 2004
Hazel Carby, Yale University
"Child of Empire: Racializing Subjects in Post World War II Britain"
October 27, 2003
2002-2003
Bruno Latour, École des Mines de Paris (Centre de Sociologie de l'Innovation)
"Why has Critical Spirit Run Out of Steam? About Iconoclash and Beyond"
April, 2003
Peter Brown, Princeton University
"Scholarship and Imagination: The Study of Late Antiquity"
January 27, 2003
2001-2002
Lynn Hunt, University of California, Los Angeles
"The Novel and the Origins of Human Rights: The Intersection of History, Psychology, and Literature"
April 8, 2002
Elaine Scarry, Harvard University
"Nine One One: Citizenship in Emergency"
February 25, 2002
2000-2001
Gayatri Spivak, Columbia University
"Human Rights and the Humanities"
February 13, 2001
Roger Chartier, Directeur d'Études at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (Paris)
"At the Crossroads Between Textual Criticism and Cultural History: The Return to Literature"
October 16, 2000
1999-2000
Wolfgang Iser, University of Constance
"An Evening with Wolfgang Iser"
April 3, 2000
Homi Bhabha, University of Chicago
March 6, 2000
Marjorie Garber, Harvard University
January 11, 2000
Bei Dao, Poet
November 29, 1999
Svetlana Alpers, University of California, Berkeley
"What Are We Looking For? Expectations in Art History"
November 8, 1999
Pina Bausch, Director, Tanztheater Wuppertal, Germany
October 18, 1999
1998-1999
Stefan Maul, University of Heidelberg
"Constructions of Divinity: The Idea of God in Ancient Near East"
May 17, 1999
Jacques Derrida, Director of Studies, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris)
"The Future of the Profession, or the Unconditional University (Thanks to the 'Humanities': What Could Take Place Tomorrow)"
April 15, 1999
Alexander Nehamas, Princeton University
"The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters"
March 8, 1999
Beatriz Sarlo, Universidad de Buenos Aires
"No Future? Literature and Cultural Politics"
February 22, 1999
Fredric Jameson, Duke University
"Aesthetic Autonomy in the Age of Late Capitalism"
January 25, 1999
Wole Soyinka, Emory University
"Contemporary Literature and the Future of the Humanities and Arts"
November 30, 1998
Karl Heinz Bohrer, University of Bielefeld
"Without Future: The Meaning of Poetic Nihilism for Interpretation, Theater and State"
November 9, 1998
Stephen Jay Gould, Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology
"Interactions of Art and Science, and the Largely Arbitrary Nature of Academic Boundaries"
November 4, 1998
Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Harvard University
"Race and Class / Race in Class"
October 12, 1998
1997-1998
Harold Bloom, Yale University
May 18, 1998
Helene Cixous, University of Paris VIII
March 16, 1998
Peter Eisenman, Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies, New York
March 9, 1998
Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Artists
March 2, 1998
