2012: Lysistrata
Aristophanes’ Lysistrata
Keynote Speaker: Jeffrey Henderson, William Goodwin Aurelio professor of Greek language and literature at Boston University
2011: Frankenstein
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus
Keynote Speaker: N. Katherine Hayles
2009: Communing with Food
Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma
Keynote Speaker: Lynne Rossetto Kasper
2008: Judge, Judge Not
William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure (2007)
Keynote Speaker: Albert Braunmuller
2007: Urban Spaces, Urban Voices
Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, (1961)
Keynote Speaker: James Howard Kunstler
2006: What Would You Die For?
Perpetua's Passion (2005)
Keynote Speaker: Terry Waite
2005: Searching for a Self
Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
Keynote Speaker: Ruthe T. Sheffey
2004: The Horror
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, (1902)
Keynote Speaker: Jeffrey Tayler
2003: Post Human?
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (1932)
Keynote Speaker: Francis Fukuyama
2002: Crossing Boundaries
Tracy Chevalier, Girl with a Pearl Earring (2001)
Keynote Speaker: Tracy Chevalier
2001: N/A
There was no 2001 symposium as the event was switched from the fall to spring semester.
2000: Poverty Perceived
Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York (1890)
Keynote Speaker: Michael Katz, Sheldon and Lucy Hackney Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania
1999: Paradise
Toni Morrison, Paradise (1998)
Keynote Speaker: Toni Morrison, Professor of Humanities, Princeton University; Nobel Laureate and Pulitzer Prize Winner
1998: West Meets East
Shusaku Endo, Silence (1969)
Keynote Speaker: Van C. Gessel, Professor of Japanese Literature, Brigham Young University; Endo translator and playwright of stage versions of Endo's works
1997: Friendship
Plato, Lysis (1969)
Keynote Speaker: Father James McEvoy, Dean, Faculty of Philosophy, St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, Ireland; Scholar of the history of friendship and love from antiquity through the Middle Ages
1996: Culture and Tradition
Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (1969)
Keynote Speaker: Simon Gikandi, Professor of African and Latin-American Literature, University of Michigan
1995: Bearing Witness
St. Luke The Book of Luke (ca. 75 A.D.)
Keynote Speaker: Jaroslav Pelikan: Professor of History, Yale University; President of the Academy of Arts and Sciences
1994 (Autumn): Utopia
Thomas More, Utopia (1517)
Keynote Speaker: Richard Marius, Professor of English at Harvard University, and biographer of Thomas More
1994: Creator, Creature, Creation
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1818)
Keynote Speaker: Steven Jay Gould, Harvard University, Professor of Zoology and author of numerous books
1993: Justice
Martin Luther King, "Letter from Birmingham Jail" (1963)
Keynote Speaker: James Farmer, civil rights leader and co-founder of CORE
1992: Discovering America?
Bartolome de las Casas, The Devastation of the Indies (ca. 1545)
Keynote Speaker: George Winius, Latin-American historian
1991: Ideology: Practice and Theory
Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto (1848)
Keynote Speaker: Christopher Lasch, cultural critic & scholar of the history of ideas
1990: Man and Nature
Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854)
Keynote Speaker: Alfred Kazin, critic and scholar of American letters
1989: Illusion and Reality
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (1902)
Keynote Speaker: Czeslaw Milosz, Poet and Nobel Laureate in Literature
1988: Human Suffering
Elie Weisel, Night (1958)
Keynote Speaker: Elie Weisel, Nobel Laureate-the Peace Prize
1987: (Stoicism)
Epictetus, The Encheiridion (The Handbook) (*ca.100 A.D.)
Keynote Speaker: Vice Admiral James B. Stockdale
1986: (Report on Humanities in Education)
William Bennett, To Reclaim a Legacy (1985)
Keynote: William Bennett