2023-24 Cathy Park Hong, "‘Major Feelings: Cathy Park Hong in Conversation with Peter Ho Davies"
2022-23 Alexis Pauline Gumbs, "‘Poetry as Praxis: Alexis Pauline Gumbs in conversation with Madhumita Lahiri"
2019-20 Jenny L. Davis, "‘In the Future, Robots will Speak Chickasaw’: Indigenous Language Futurism and the Temporalities of Language Reclamation"
2018-19 Nityanand Jayaraman, "Celebrating the Poromboke Commons: Climate Change, Land-Use Change and Cultural Activism"
2017-18 Shamil Jeppie, “Archives and Futures: A View from ‘the most distant place’”
2016-17 Matthew Desmond and Alex Kotlowitz, "Race, Poverty, and Housing in American Cities: What do we do now?"
2015-16 Naomi Klein, "This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate"
2013-14 Katherine Boo, The New Yorker, "Behind the Beautiful Forevers: An Evening with Katherine Boo"
2012-13 Wendy Chun, Modern Culture and Media, Brown University, "Imagined Networks, Affective Connections"
2011-12 Peter Galison, History of Science, Harvard, "Einstein, Clocks, and the Materiality of Time"
2010-11 Marjorie Garber, English and Visual and Environmental Studies, Harvard, "After the Humanities"
2009-10 Joan Wallach Scott, History, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, "Sexularism: On Gender Equality and Secularization"
2008-09 Barbara Stafford, Art History, Emerita, University of Chicago, “Bits of Behavior/Concepts Prior to Words: The Emotional Intuition of Form”
2007-08 Dipesh Chakrabarty, History, South Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago, “Empire, Ethics and the Calling of History”
2005-06 Lawrence N. Powell, History, Tulane University, “New Orleans: An American Pompei”
2004-05 Frederic Jameson, Comparative Literature, Duke University, “History and Narrative”
2003-04 Albie Sachs, Constitutional Court Judge, South Africa, “A New Court for a New Democracy: Art, Memory, and Human Rights Come Together in Building South Africa’s Constitutional Court”
2002-03 Kwame Anthony Appiah, Philosophy, Princeton University, “Whose Life Is It Anyway? Identity and Individuality in Ethics and Politics”
2001-02 Martha Nussbaum, Law and Ethics, University of Chicago, “Global Duties: Cicero’s Problematic Legacy”
2000-01 Natalie Zemon Davis, History, Emerita, Princeton University, “Rethinking Cultural Mixture: The Travels of ‘Leo Africanus’”
1998-99 Helen Vendler, English, Harvard University, “Robert Lowell and Depressive Form”
1997-98 Jonathan Levy, Theatre Arts, SUNY-Stony Brook, “Requiem for a Lightweight: Avery Hopwood and ‘Serious Theatre’”
1996-97 Sander L. Gilman, Comparative Literature, University of Chicago, “Seeing Faces, Making Faces: Cosmetic Surgery at 100 Years”
1995-96 Patricia Meyer Spacks, English, University of Virginia, “Sensibilities of Self-Love”
1994-95 Dalia Judovitz, French and Italian, Emory University, “Playing the Field: Redefining Artistic Production”
1993-94 Richard Sennett, Theory and Culture, New York University, “The Geography of Ghettos”
1992-93 Paula Gunn Allen, writer, English, University of California, Los Angeles, A reading from her work
1991-92 Arnold Eisen, Religious Studies, Stanford University, “The Search for Authority in Twentieth-Century Judaic Studies”
1990-91 Arnold Davidson, Philosophy, University of Chicago, “The Horror of Monsters”
1989-90 Simon Schama, History, Harvard University, “Perishable Commodities: On Craft and Value in Netherlandish Still Life”
