Past Humanities Symposia

2002: CROSSING BOUNDARIES
Tracy Chevalier, Girl with a Pearl Earring (2001)
Keynote Speaker: Tracy Chevalier  

2001: 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

Symposium Description         Events         Poster         Past Symposia