Kritikos lecturers (1993–2023)

Britt Wray 2022–23
Britt Wray, Human and Planetary Health Postdoctoral Fellow at the Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health, Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Centre on Climate Change and Planetary Health. “How to Cope with Climate Anxiety: Saving the Earth and Saving Ourselves.” Part of the Belonging series.
 
Tina Rosan 2021-22
Christina Rosan, Geography and Urban Studies, Temple University. “Reimagining Cities to be Sustainable, Healthy, Green, and Equitable.” Part of the Imagining Futures series.
 
Anthony Leiserowitz 2020-21
Anthony Leiserowitz (UO Environmental Studies MS 1998, PhD 2003), Senior Research Scientist and Director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. “Climate Change in the American Mind.” Part of the Climate Justice series.
Leonard Mlodinow 2019-20
Leonard Mlodinow, theoretical physicist and best-selling literary science writer. “Elastic: Flexible Thinking for our Time of Change.” Part of the Convergence series.
2018-19
Danielle Allen, Professor and Director, Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, Harvard University. “The Ethics of Public Participation in a Digital Age.” Part of The Common Good series.
2017-18
Margo Jefferson, Pulitzer-Prize winning writer, cultural critic, Columbia University professor, and author of Negroland: A Memoir. “From ‘I’ to ‘We’: The Role of the Citizen-Critic. Part of the We the People series.
2017-18
George Packer, staff writer for The New Yorker, and author of The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America. “American Identity in the Age of Trump.” Part of the We the People series.
2016–17 (event was cancelled)
Margo Jefferson, Pulitzer-Prize winning writer, cultural critic, Columbia University professor, and author of Negroland: A Memoir.
2015–16
Ben Fountain, author, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk.”An Evening with Ben Fountain.” Part of the Justice series.
2014-15
William Deresiewicz, author of Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life. “What is College For? A Defense of the Liberal Arts” and “Education in a Neoliberal Age” Part of the connection series.
2013-14
Bruce Schneier, computer security expert and writer. “Internet, Security, and Power.” Part of the vulnerable series.
2012-13
Jonathan Haidt, Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership, New York University; author of The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion (2012). “How Human Beings Got Morality, Religion, Civilization, and Humanity” in Eugene and “What on Earth is Happening to Us? Polarization, Demonization and Paralysis in American Politics” in Portland. Part of the being human | human being series.
2011-12
Andrew J. Bacevich, professor of International Relations and History at Boston University and retired career officer in the U.S. Army. Bacevich is the author of Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War (2010) and The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism (2008). “A Decade of War,” part of the Conflict series.
2010-11
James E. McWilliams, History, Texas State University, San Marcos; author of Just Food: Where Locavores Get It Wrong and How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly. “Thinking Beyond the Food Movement: Four Big Ideas about Food and Sustainability.” Part of the Sustenance series.
2009-10
Robert Darnton, Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor and Director of the Harvard University Library. “Digitize, Democratize: Google, Libraries, and the Future of Book.” Part of the Year of the Book series.
2008-09.
Kenneth Miller, Department of Molecular Biology, Cell Biology and Biochemistry, Brown University. “Time to Abandon Darwin? Evolution and the Battle for America’s Soul” and “Darwin, God, and Design: America’s Continuing Problem with Evolution.” Part of the Darwin Lecture Series.
2007-08
Richard Taruskin, music scholar, University of California, Berkeley. “Did Somebody Say Censorship?“
2006-07
There was no Kritikos Lecturer.
2005-06
John Shelby Spong, former Episcopal Bishop of Newark, NJ.
“Who is the Popular God in Public Life in the 21st Century?” and “Can 21st Century People Believe in God with Integrity?”
2004-05
Louis Menand, writer and literary critic. “The Humanities and the University of the Twenty-First Century” and “The Story of the Soup Cans“
2003-04
Victor Davis Hanson, military historian and professor of classics, California State University, Fresno. “War and the West: Then and Now” and “War in a Classical Context”
2002-03
Milton Viorst, foreign correspondent, journalist and author. “The Dilemma of Modern Islam” and “The Fundamentalist Enigma: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam”
2001-02
William Kennedy, Pulitzer-prize winning author of the Albany Cycle. “Writing the Albany Cycle: Discovering Novels” and “Roscoe and Me”
2000-01
James Q. Wilson, professor emeritus, UCLA Anderson School of Management. “Moral Intuitions” and “Can the Crime Rate be Kept Down?”
1999-2000
There was no Kritikos Lecturer.
1998-99
Robert Alter, University of California, Berkeley. “The David Story and the Beginnings of Political Fiction” and “Reading Biblical Narrative.”
1997-98
Eva Brann, Dean, St. John’s College, Annapolis, Maryland. “The Grounding of Time: Plotinus and Heidegger” and “The Human Consequences of Thinking About Time.”
1996-97
Jean Bethke Elshtain, Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics, University of Chicago. “The Humanities and the Democracy of Everyday Life” and “Democracy at Century’s End.”
1995-96
Richard Rodriguez, writer/journalist. “Brown in Black and White America: Notes on the Latinization of the United States” and “GONE WEST: The Exhaustion of an American Metaphor”
1994-95
Stanley Crouch, jazz critic and essayist. “I Believe I’ll Go Back Home: Recent Developments in American Art” and “Conversation with jazz musician Wynton Marsalis” in the Hult Center’s Soreng Theatre.
1993-94
Harvey C. Mansfield, William R. Kenan Professor of Government, Harvard University. “What is a Republican Citizen?” and “The Political and Cultural Legacy of the 60s”