Colloquia and Lectures in the Recent Past
2009-2010
September 24, Daniel Dennett (Tufts). The Richmond Lecture: "Darwin and the Evolution of Reasons."
September 30, Poetry reading by Kieron Winn (Oxford). Additional examples of Winn's work here and here. Co-sponsored by the English Department.
October 1, Colloquium, Richard Sennett (NYU/LSE), "On Craftsmanship."
October 19, Colloquium, Steve Feld, (UNM/Univ. of Oslo), "Jazz Cosmopolitanism in Accra: A New Series of African Documentaries." Feld discography here. Booklet for Jazz Cosmopolitanism in Accra DVD here. Co-sponsored by the Williams College Music Department.
November 2, Weiss Lecture on Medicine and Medical Ethics: Harold Varmus, M.D. (Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center), “Health and Science in the Developing World.”
November 5, W. Allison Davis 1924 and John A. Davis 1933 Lecture:
Angela Riley (Southwestern Law School; Visiting Prof., UCLA Law), "Indigenous Peoples in a Multicultural World."
2008-2009
September 23, 8 pm (Centerstage, '62 Center), Claudia Stevens (independent actor and playwright) will present her one-woman play Blue Lias, or the Fish Lizard's Whore, at the Centerstage, '62 Center for Theatre and Dance.
September 25, 4 pm, David Armitage (Harvard), "Civil War from Rome to Iraq: A History in Ideas." Co-sponsored by the History Department, Williams College.
October 2 , 4 pm, Susan Neiman (Philosophy, Einstein Forum, Germany), "What about evil?" [See recent New York Times review of Neiman's new book, Moral Clarity.]
November 6, 8 pm, Richard Thompson Ford, Stanford Law School. Annual W. Allison Davis '24 and John Davis '33 Lecture, "Race Relations in the USA." Lecture open to the public.
November 17, Aamir Mufti, Clark-Oakley Fellow, "The missing homeland of Edward Said."
January 14, 8 pm, Ian Tattersall (Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History), The Richmond Lecture, "Becoming Human: Patterns of Innovation in Human Evolution."
February 12, noon, Oakley Seminar Room, John L. Jackson, Jr. (Penn), "Racial Paranoia." Lunchtime colloquium; reservation required because of limited seating. Co-sponsored by the MCC.
February 24, 4 pm, Michael Bérubé (English, Penn State), "The Left at War."
March 4, 4 pm, Ellen Greene (Classics, Univ. of Oklahoma), “Love and War, Ethics and Erotics, in Sappho's Poetic Texts.”
April 14, 7:30 pm, Griffin 3, Ronald M. Green (Religion, Dartmouth). Annual Weiss Lecture on Medicine & Medical Ethics. "Babies by Design: The Ethics of Genetic Code." Lecture open to the public.
April 23, 4 pm, Michael Walzer (Institute for Advanced Study), "On just and unjust wars, with particular attention to terrorism and counterinsurgency warfare."
2007-2008
September 20, 4 pm, Oakley Center Colloquium. Margaret Urban Walker (Philosopher, Arizona State),"Truth as Reparations." Additional information to be uploaded soon.
October 16, 5:30, Clark Café, Clark Art Institute Jonathan Katz, this year's Clark-Oakley Fellow, will present a talk entitled "Cross (Un)dressing: Art and Eros in the Sixties."
October 17, 4 pm, Oakley Center Colloquium, Nathan Englander (Writer). Will discuss his recent work, including The Ministry of Special Cases.
October 18, 4 pm David Lowenthal (University College, London), "Heritage struggles and ironies of defending imagined pasts."
October 25, 4 pm Gerard Aching, NYU, "Liberalisms, Moralizing Literature, and Other Colonial Traps."
November 1, 4 pm, Simon Doubleday, Hofstra, "In the Light of Medieval Spain: Rethinking 'Relevance' and Ethical Commitment.
November 8, 8 pm, Brooks-Rogers Auditorium, Charles H. Long will give the W. Allison Davis '24 and John Davis '33 Lecture, "Religion and the Sociological Imagination of African American Social Scientists."
November 13, 4 pm Kai Erikson, Yale, "Reflections on Katrina: A Report from the Field."
January 8, 2008, 7 pm, Brooks-Rogers Auditorium. Lisa Randall (Physics, Harvard) will deliver the Richmond Lecture, "Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe's Hidden Dimensions."
January 17, 2008, 4 pm, Siva Vaidhyanathan, UVA, "Technofundamentalism." Also at 8 pm, Griffin 3, a lecture, "The Googlization of Everything."
January 23, 2008, 4 pm, Oakley Center, Marni Sandweiss (History and American Studies, Amherst), "Passing Strange: The Secret Life of Clarence King."
February 19, 2008, 4 pm, Oakley Center Colloquium, Christopher Kelty (Rice), "Quality, Authority, and Peer Review After the Internet."
April 8, 2008, 8 pm, Brooks-Rogers Auditorium, Helen Epstein, "The Invisible Cure: Africa, The West, and the Fight Against AIDS" (Annual Weiss Lecture).
April 30, 2008, 4 pm, Oakley Center Colloquium, Colin G. Calloway (Dartmouth), "White People, Indians, and Highlanders."
May 1, 2008, 4 pm, Oakley Center Colloquium, Madhavi Sunder (Yale/UC-Davis Law), "The New Enlightenment: How Muslim Women are Bringing Religion Out of the Dark Ages"
2006-2007
September 14, 2006, 4:00 PM
Adam Phillips, "On What is Fundamental: Psychoanalysis and Fundamentalism."
September 15, 2006, 4:00 PM
Adam Phillips, Topic TBA (This colloquium will be based on a selection from Phillips's forthcoming collection of essays, Side Effects.)
October 5 , 2006, 4:00 PM
Margaret Livingstone, Harvard Medical School, "A Conversation on Art and the Biology of Vision"
October 17 , 2006, 4:00 PM:
Graham Hammill , Notre Dame, "A Poetics of Political Theology: Harrington with Marvell"
October 30 , 2006, 4:00 PM:
Mieke Bal, University of Amsterdam, "Re-reading Rembrandt for Our Time: Painting, Philosophy, and the Relation to Sources "
November 2 , 2006, Griffin Hall, 4:00 PM:
Saidiya Hartman, Columbia University, "Dead Book"
November 14 , 2006, 4:00 PM:
Matt Houlbrook, University of Liverpool, "The Man with the Powderpuff in Interwar London"
November 16 , 2006, 4:00 PM:
Mieke Bal, University of Amsterdam, "Double Mobility: Toward a Migratory Aesthetics of Video "
November 8, 2006, 8:00 PM, Brooks-Rogers Recital Hall:
Dr. Mitch Besser, Founder and Medical Director of mothers2mothers, South Africa- Annual Weiss Lecture: "AIDS in Africa: Simple Answers to Complicated Questions"
December 4 , 2006, 4:00 PM:
Philip Bohlman, University of Chicago, "Johann Gottfried Herder and the Ownership of History"
January 10 , 2007, 7:00 PM, Chapin Hall:
Jared Diamond, UCLA - Annual Richmond Lecture
January 11 , 2007, 2:00 PM:
Jared Diamond, UCLA, colloquim; topic TBA
February 8 , 2007, 8:00 PM, Brooks-Rogers:
Pedro Noguera, NYU - Annual W. Allison Davis 1924 and John A. Davis 1933 Lecture; topic TBA
February 19, 2007, 8:00 PM, Brooks-Rogers:
K. Anthony Appiah, Princeton University, "Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a world of Strangers"
February 20, 2007, 4:00 PM:
K. Anthony Appiah, Princeton University, colloquium on the reception of African Art
April 3, 2007, 4:00 PM:
Jacques Rancière, University of Paris-VIII (St. Denis), "The Misadventures of Critical Thinking"
April 4, 2007, 4:00 PM:
Jacques Rancière, University of Paris-VIII (St. Denis) "The Aesthetic Dimension: Aesthetics, Politics, Knowledge"
April 10 , 2007, 4:00 PM:
William Kentridge, artist (South Africa) , Topic TBA
April 19 , 2007, 4:00 PM:
Wendy Brown, UC Berkeley, Topic TBA