2016–17 Human(ities)

In this year’s theme, Humanities, we explore a multiplicity of perspectives on “the humanities” as traditionally understood—fine arts, literatures and languages, philosophy, religion, classics—as well as on various and varied aspects of human experience and humanness. 

Reza Aslan,writer, commentator, professor, producer, and scholar of religions; author of Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth. “An Evening with Reza Aslan: Religion, Identity, and the Future of America.”

Lucy Jones, former U.S. Geological Survey seismologist, founder of the Dr. Lucy Jones Center for Science and Society. “The Fault Lies Not in Our Stars: Why Natural Disasters Become Human Catastrophes.”

Deborah Willis, University Professor and Chair of the Department of Photography & Imaging at the Tisch School of the Arts, and an affiliated faculty member of Africana Studies in the Department of Social & Cultural Analysis at New York University. “Visualizing the Black Body in Photography and Popular Culture.”

Vijay Gupta, LA Philharmonic violinist and founder of Street Symphony. “The Citizen-Artist as Healer” in Eugene and Portland.

Annette Gordon-Reed, American Legal History, Harvard Law School, and Peter Onuf, Early American History (emeritus), University of Virginia. “Most Blessed of the Patriarchs” Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination on April 21, 2017.