Past Speakers
2023-2024 Season
Love Calls Us to the Things of This World
Nat Anderson, The Alexander Griswold Cummins Professor Emerita of English, Swarthmore College
Social Justice: Realist or Idealist?
Erec Smith, Associate Professor of Rhetoric, York College of Pennsylvania, President and Co-founder, Free Black Thought
Missing Women in the Workplace
Jennifer Peck '06, Associate Professor of Economics, Swarthmore College
Viruses Versus Hosts: The Evolutionary Arms Race
Sergei Pond, Professor of Biology and Director of the Center of Viral Evolution, Temple University
Forensics and Counterforensics: Evidence Beyond Crime
Alejandra Azuero-Quijano, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Swarthmore College
Valley of the Birdtail: An Indian Reserve, a White Town, and the Road to Reconciliation
Andrew Stobo Sniderman '07, Author
Why Bad Feelings Make Life Good
Krista K. Thomason, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Swarthmore College
Chronodiversity: Thinking about Time with Trees
Jared Farmer, Walter H. Annenberg Professor of History, Chair of the History Graduate Group, University of Pennsylvania
2022-2023 Season
Everything You've Learning About Grammar Could be Wrong(-ish)
Nicole Holliday, Assistant Professor of Linguistics, University of Pennsylvania
From Prodigy to Professional - A Life in Music
David Kim, Philadelphia Orchestra Concertmaster
Black in White Space: The Enduring Impact of Color in Everyday Life
Elijah Anderson, Sterling Professor of Sociology and African American Studies, Yale University
Counter Forensics and the New Sherlock Holmes
Alejandra Azuero-Quijano, SDJ, PhD., Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Swarthmore College
Vaccination: History, Science and Myth
Judy Owen, Professor Emeritus of Biology, Haverford College
Improving our Health with Behavioral Economics
David Asch, Executive Director, Center for Health Care Innovation, John Morgan Professor, University of Pennsylvania
The Court at the Center of the Corporate Universe
Travis Laster, Court of Chancery
Reflecting Forward: Navigating Democracy and Saving Ourselves
Khadijah White '04, Associate Professor, Department of Journalism and Media Studies, Rutgers University
2021-2022 Season
GRIT: The Power of Passion and Persuasion
Angela Duckworth, Psychologist, MacArthur Fellow, and Character Lab CEO
Challenges of an Empathy Bridge
Arlie Russell Hochschild '62 H '93, Professor Emerita of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley
Ecosystem of Crisis: Politics, Health Care, and Social Justice
Josh Green '92, Lieutenant Governor of Hawaii, and Physician
Creativity, Imagination, and Thinking Through the Post-COVID Future
Agustín Fuentes, Professor of Anthropology, Princeton University
Fracking, Freedom, and Community in a Pennsylvania Town
Colin Jerolmack, Chair, Environmental Studies, New York University
Who Gets to be a Child? (Re)Imagining Black Boyhood
Joseph Derrick Nelson, Associate Profesor, Educational Studies, Swarthmore University
If Architecture Were For People
Brian Goldstein, Urban and Architectural Historian, Assistant Professor, Swarthmore College
From Swarthmore to Chester: A Journey in Violence Prevention
David Kennedy '80, H'11 Professor of Criminal Justice and Director of the National Network for Safe Communities, John Jay College of Criminal Justice
2020 - 2021 Season
MyBarackObama: How Social Media Ate Our Elections and What We Can Do About It
Claire Bond Potter, Author and Professor of History, New School for Social Research
The State of the LGBTQ Movement
Rea Carey, Executive Director, National LGBTQ Task Force
The 2020 Elections: What Happened? What's Next?
Jason Zengerle '96, Writer at Large, The New York Times Magazine
Spit Spreads Death: The Influenza Pandemic of 1918-19 in Philadelphia
Robert Hicks, Senior Consulting Scholar, College of Physicians of Philadelphia
The Policy, Politics, and Prevention of the Overdose Crisis: Rethinking Responses to the Epidemic
Lindsey Richardson, Medical Sociologist and Associate Professor of Sociology, University of British Columbia
Accountability for War Crimes: Reflections on the Past, Present, and Future
Sofia Candeias, U.N. Team of Experts on Sexual Violence in Conflict
The Role of Ambivalence in the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election
Catherine Norris, Associate Professor o Psychology, Swarthmore College
John Blanchar, Associate Professor of Psychology, Swarthmore College
The Illusion of Separation: Finding Hope in a Time of Climate Crisis
Eileen Flanagan, Quaker Author, Speaker, and Activist
2019 - 2020 Season
An Intimate Conversation with WHYY's Marty Moss-Coane
Marty Moss-Coane, Host and Executive Producer, Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane
The Paradox of Repression and Nonviolent Movements
Lee Smithey, Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies and Sociology, Swarthmore College
Regional Economies: Uniting Rural and Urban Communities to Confront Climate Change
Judy Wicks, Author, Entrepreneur and Activist
Yes, we can solve the climate crisis
Paul Hawken, editor of Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming
First Ladies: From Ceremony to Substance
Katherine Sibley, Professor of History and Director of American Studies at St. Joseph's University
Sub-Saharan Africa's Debt and Development Finance Challenges
Antoinette M. Sayeh '79, Former Director of the IMF's African Department, Former Finance Minister of Liberia
Friends, Peace and Sanctuary: What does art have to do with empathy and belonging?
Peggy Sieden, College Librarian, Swarthmore College & Katie Price, Associate Director for Co-curricular Programming and Outreach, Lang Center
The State of the LGBTQ Movement
Rea Carey, Executive Director, National LGBTQ Task Force
2018 - 2019 Season
Notes from the Field: A Career in Reporting
Dave Davies, Senior Reporter, Contributor, and Fill-in Host for Fresh Air, WHYY FM
Finding Faith and Making the Self in America
Rebecca Davis, Associate Professor of History, University of Delaware
Peace with North Korea?
John Feffer, Director of Foreign Policy In Focus, Institute for Policy Studies (D.C.)
A Professor and His Students Reflect on the Israel/Palestine Conflict
Sa’ed Atshan, Assistant Professor, Peace and Conflict Studies, Swarthmore College
The Frontier Where Science Meets Society
Rush Holt, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
Public Policy Lessons for Academia from the U.S. Department of State
Elizabeth Nichols, Assistant Professor, Biology, Swarthmore College
Behavioral Economics: Making Us Better People, Professionals, and Policymakers
Syon Bhanot, Assistant Professor of Economics, Swarthmore College
America Needs an Enemy
Dominic Tierney, Associate Professor of Political Science, Swarthmore College
2017–2018 Season
Responsible Nationalism? Why Economists Are Rethinking the Merits of Free Trade
Erin Bronchetti, Associate Professor, Economics, Swarthmore College
What Makes Democracy Work?
Ben Berger, Associate Professor of Political Science and Executive Director of the Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility
Walls or Bridges? The American Immigration System at a Crossroads
Thomas Alexander Aleinikoff, Director of the Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility
Zombies in the Language of American Dystopia
Jamie Thomas, Assistant Professor of Linguistics, Swarthmore College
Designing for Social Justice
Jules Dingle AIA, Principal at Philadelphia Architecture Firm DIGSAU
Bon Ku MD, MPP, Assistant Dean for Health and Design at Thomas Jefferson University and Emergency Medicine Physician
Whose Democracy? Inequalities in Political Participation
Daniel Laurison, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Swarthmore College
Communicating Science to the Public
Paul Offit, Director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
Why Fighting Online Abuse Is Good for Free Speech
Danielle Citron, Morton & Sophia Macht Professor of Law, University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law
2016–2017 Season
Academic Freedom: The Whole World is Watching (for five seconds)
Tim Burke, Professor of History, Swarthmore College
Dealing with Difference: Lessons from the Liberal Arts
Valerie Smith, President, Swarthmore College
What’s Different about the 2016 Election?
Carol Nackenoff, Richter Professor of Political Science, Swarthmore College
The Curse of Bigness: What Louis Brandeis Means Today
Jeffrey Rosen, President and CEO, National Constitution Center
Failing States and the Delusions of U.S. Policies
William Reno, Professor of Political Science & Director, Program of African Studies, Northwestern University
Sustainability: How to be a Catalyst for Change
Aurora Winslade, Director of Sustainability, Swarthmore College
Capturing Moments That Last a Lifetime
David Swanson, Photojournalist, The Philadelphia Inquirer
Fusion Energy: How to Make a Star on Earth
Michael Brown, Professor of Physics and Chair, Physics & Astronomy, Swarthmore College
2015–2016 Season
Who Should Claim Credit for the Economy in 2016?
Rick Valelly, Claude C. Smith ’14 Professor of Political Science, Swarthmore College
Taxes, Spending, and the Fine Art of the Deal (maybe)
John L. Micek, Opinion Editor of PennLive, Patriot-News of Harrisburg
How Does the U.S. Immigration Crisis Affect Pennsylvania?
Aurora Camacho de Schmidt, Professor Emerita of Spanish, Swarthmore College
Telling the Story of Mayor Nutter’s Philadelphia
Desiree Peterkin-Bell, Director of Communications and Strategy and City Representative, Philadelphia
Knife Fights: Modern War in Theory and Practice
John Nagl, Headmaster, The Haverford School
Ending Extreme Poverty
Stephen O’Connell, Gil and Frank Mustin Professor of Economics, Swarthmore College
The Reality of Civil War Medicine
Robert D. Hicks, Director, Mütter Museum, The College of Physicians of Philadelphia
Why We Work
Barry Schwartz, Dorwin P. Cartwright Professor of Social Theory and Social Action, Swarthmore College
