Phi Beta Kappa hosts a Distinguished Faculty Lecture every semester. The lectures highlight the work and ideas of some of the College of Arts and Sciences' most respected, thought-provoking professors. Phi Beta Kappa lectures are free and open to the Cornell Community.
UPCOMING LECTURE
past lectures
David Feldshuh
Abstract:
Cornell theatre professor and physician David Feldshuh will speak about the political consequences of writing fiction from history. His play, Miss Evers’ Boys, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and as an HBO film, won five Emmys including Best Picture. The context of Miss Evers’ Boys is the infamous “Tuskegee Study,” a 40-year government experiment on African American patients. Biography: For almost forty years, David has enjoyed two careers: Cornell professor of theatre as well as practicing emergency medicine physician. David’s widely-produced play, Miss Evers' Boys, combined his medical and theatrical passions, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama. As an HBO movie, Miss Evers’ Boys received twelve Emmy nominations winning five including Best Picture and the President’s Award for “presentations exploring vital social issues.” Miss Evers’ Boys also received the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Television Movie. David is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Dartmouth College, and is the recipient of the Distinguished Service to Public Health Award from the National Center for Bioethics. |
Jessica Levin Martinez
All the World in Ithaca: Global Collections and the Future of Museums
At this moment of sweeping change in art museums around the world, Jessica Levin Martinez reflects on the growth of the Johnson Museum of Art over the last 50 years, and considers what it might mean to study, conserve, and exhibit global collections in a truly interconnected world. Jessica Levin Martinez is the Richard J. Schwartz Director of the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University. Prior to joining Cornell in 2019, she directed academic and public programs at Harvard Art Museums and the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art. She has taught museum practice and art history at George Washington University, University of Chicago, and University of Michigan. Her exhibition Clay--Modeling African Design, co-curated with Suzanne Preston Blier, is at Harvard Art Museums through November 13, 2022. She has investigated Nazi-looted artworks in Czech Republic and Slovakia, and holds a PhD in History of Art & Architecture from Harvard University. |
George Hutchinson
Sandra Greene
Biography and the History of Slavery in West Africa
Professor Sandra E. Greene, the Stephen ’59 and Madeline ’60 Anbinder Professor of African History at Cornell University, Department of History, will give the Spring 2020 Phi Beta Kappa Distinguished Lecture on Wednesday, April 22, 2020. Her talk will discuss the history of slavery within Africa, with a particular focus on the biographies of three 19th century individuals - one enslaved, two enslavers - and on what such biographies can tell us about the institution of slavery. ABSTRACT: The literature on Africa’s involvement in the Atlantic slave trade is both deep and rich in its insights about one of the largest human mass movements in world history. We now have a much better understanding of the numbers enslaved and transported to the Americas: the mortality rates and the number of rebellions that occurred on the ships transporting them to the Americas. We know a great deal about the cultures the enslaved brought with them, and the individual lives they lived, generation after generation, in bondage in the Americas. Much has been written, as well, about the women and men in the Americas who were slave owners: the sellers and buyers of slaves, their political and economic interests, and how they managed their human property. In contrast, a much smaller set of studies exists about the history of slavery within Africa. Still, we now the methods slavers used to uproot so many individuals from their families and friends; how African masters used their slaves to serve their different social, political, and labor interests; how African systems of slavery changed over time; how the enslaved responded to their plight; how African masters resisted the colonial abolition of slavery. In other words, we so know something about slavery in Africa despite the more limited attention on this topic within the field of African History. What really distinguishes the study of slavery in the Americas (especially the U.S.) from the study of slavery in West Africa is the use of biographies. There are really very few studies that are able to provide readers with that sense of closeness with the African women and men who were deeply affected by the institution of slavery as it existed in Africa. Slave narratives by the enslaved themselves are few; documents penned by African slave masters are rare. In this presentation, I demonstrate how one can get underneath the broad-brush strokes that historians have meticulously reconstructed about slavery in Africa so as to bring to life the experiences, hopes, dreams, and frustrations of both the enslaved and enslavers. I focus in particular on the lives of three individuals, one who was enslaved, and two others who were slave masters in 19th century Ghana. By using insights from the historical study of emotions as well as clinical psychology, I emphasize the extent to which we can learn why these three and many others like them made certain life-changing decisions, whether it was to try to commit suicide rather than to remain in bondage, or to resist or accommodate the colonial abolition of slavery. I also argue that these biographies can also tell us a lot more beyond the life and times of these three individuals. Biographies of those directly involved with the institution of slavery are important because the decisions made by these three and so many others during this period, the 19th century, continue to influence how people interact with one another to this day. |
Jonathan Culler
Must Novels Have Narrators and Lyric Poems Speakers?
Professor Jonathan Culler October 28, 2020 4:30 p.m. EST Missed it? View the recording here: www.shorturl.at/azV39 |
Peter Katzenstein
Trumpism in American Foreign Policy
Peter Katzenstein October 23, 2019 Professor Peter Katzenstein, the Cornell Walter S. Carpenter Jr. Professor of International Studies, Department of Government, gave the Fall 2019 Phi Beta Kappa Distinguished Faculty Lecture of October 23, 2019. His lecture, "Trumpism in American Foreign Policy," considered the relationship between Donald Trump and the politics he to some extent stands for. Abstract: Trumpism is not the same as Trump. America contains multiple traditions typically named after some of its famous presidents including Madison, Jefferson, Wilson and Jackson. Rarely does the good of any one tradition appear without a dose of the bad of another. And vice-versa. Focusing excessively on the flaws of President Trump implies that voting him out of office will return America to its normal and better self. Not so. Trumpism is part of America. |
Mariana Wolfner
Professor Mariana Wolfner, the Goldwin Smith Professor of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, gave the Spring 2019 Phi Beta Kappa Distinguished Faculty Lecture on April 24, 2019. Professor Wolfner's lecture, titled "Live, Love, and Health: Lessons from Little Fruit Flies," discussed ways that researchers can use fruit flies as a "model system" for discovering molecules that cause all animals' bodies to develop and function the way they do, including our own.
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Rosemary Avery
Martha Haynes
Professor Martha P. Haynes, the Goldwin Smith Professor of Astronomy, Department of Astronomy, gave the Spring 2018 Phi Beta Kappa Distinguished Faculty Lecture on April 25, 2018. Professor Haynes studies the large scale distribution of galaxies in the local universe and especially how local environment influences galaxy formation and evolution.
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Barry Strauss
Professor Barry Strauss, the Bryce and Edith M. Bowmar Professor in Humanistic Studies, Department of History, gave the Fall 2017 Phi Beta Kappa Distinguished Faculty Lecture on October 25, 2017. The title of Professor Strauss's lecture was "Populism Through the Ages: A Challenge for Democracy". Please see more here:
http://as.cornell.edu/news/historian-offers-lessons-antiquity-today’s-democracy |
Robert Frank
Professor Robert H. Frank, the HJ Lewis Professor of Management at the Johnson School of Management, gave the Spring 2017 Phi Beta Kappa Distinguished Faculty Lecture on April 19th. Professor Frank spoke about his new book, Success and Luck, which discusses the interesting and unexpected role of luck in life outcomes.
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Saul Teukolsky
Jon Kleinberg