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Carol J. Adams is the author of The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory. First published in 1990, the book has been…
The real person behind the hit movie starring Robin Williams, Patch Adams is both a healthcare physician and a professional clown. He is founder of…
Ayad Akhtar is the author of the critically acclaimed, poignant, coming-of-age novel, American Dervish. Since its debut, the book has been embraced…
Aubrey Anable applies affect theory to game studies, arguing that video games let us “rehearse” feelings, states, and emotions that give new tones and…
Katherine Ashenburg is the author of The Mourner's Dance: What We Do When People Die. Dr. Ashenburg taught at the University of British Columbia in…
An Editor's Quest: Finding Books to Publish: Lawrence Ashmead '54, vice president and executive editor at HarperCollins, will be at the Libraries to…
Awista Ayub will talk about her work forming a young women's soccer team in Afghanistan. In 2003, she founded the Afghan Youth Sports Exchange, a…
Robert Bakos will discuss "Dead German Composers and How They Got That Way," including the medical histories of some of our best-known composers. He…
Among the Gently Mad, Redux: Nicholas Basbanes is the author of A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books, a New…
Set within a contemporary black community in Southern California, Brit Bennett’s mesmerizing first novel, The Mothers, is an emotionally perceptive…
As a graduate student, Emily Bernard was the victim of a random stabbing in a New Haven café. In this powerful lecture, she shares the story of her…
Roy Blount Jr., prides himself on the fact that he has done more things, for money, than any other humorist, novelist, journalist, dramatist,…
Bowser, professor of Aquatic and Animal Medicine at Cornell, will discuss "Viral Hemorrhagic Septicemia in Fish in the Great Lakes Basin." Viral…
Author of Out of Eden: An Odyssey of Ecological Invasion, Alan Burdick will discuss his latest book. Burdick writes for numerous publications…
Professor of history at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, Calinger will discuss the mathematician Leonhard Euler. The Swiss-born…
William H. Calvin will discuss his book, A Brief History of the Mind: From Apes to Intellect and Beyond. A theoretical neurobiologist with an…
Calvocoressi is the author of several books of poetry, including The Last Time I Saw Amelia Earhart and Apocalyptic Swing, which is a finalist for the…
Dave Chisholm is a trumpet player, songwriter, composer, bandleader, educator, and visual artist.
He is the writer and illustrator of the 2009 graphic…
Kenneth Patchen's art is the subject of Jonathan Clark's lecture, "Extending the Medium of Words: The Graphic Art of Kenneth Patchen," the first of…
"Rachel Cohen has created a masterpiece of variety and balance in her first book" are the words used to describe A Chance Meeting: Intertwined Lives…
As a young man, Garrard Conley, the son of a Baptist pastor in a small Arkansas town, was terrified and conflicted about his sexuality. When he was a…
After a decade of exclusively writing nonfiction books about music and counterculture, the pandemic pushed Conners back into writing prose poetry. In…
The Hero's Life: Its Worth and Its Costs: Meliora Weekend 2001 will feature Richard Ben Cramer. Mr. Cramer, who often writes about baseball and…
Developing New Plays and Musicals: A fitting "wrap" for the season is Mark Cuddy, artistic director of GEVA Theatre. Mr. Cuddy made his acting debut…
In this lecture, Catherine D’Ignazio, Assistant Professor of Urban Science and Planning and Director of the Data + Feminism Lab at MIT and Lauren F.…
Danesi will explore why puzzles have emerged in human cultures ina talk entitiled "The Function of Puzzles in Human Life." Starting with the Riddle…
Brian Dettmer will speak on Sunday of Meliora Weekend at the Memorial Art Gallery on University Avenue on the topic of "ReMixed Media." Dettmer…
Diaz is the 2008 Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which also won the National Book Critics Circle Award. Diaz is…
Roger Easton, Professor at RIT's Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science, and Keith Knox, UR alumnus and retiree from Xerox Corporation, will…
The story of HIV/AIDS is likely the most cogent corporeal metaphor for the turn of the 21st century, a story of gender, race, class, identity, access…
Author of Reading, Writing and Leaving Home, Lynn Freed will discuss her writing, including some works not yet published. The New York…
The Wednesday, March 20th Neilly Series Lecture guest speaker is Anthony Giardina, the author of the novels Men with Debts (1984), A Boy's…
Greenhouse has been the Supreme Court correspondent for the New York Times since 1978. Prior to covering the Court, she attended Yale Law School on a…
Charles "Chip" Groat, Director of the US Geological Service, will discuss "US Geological Survey: 125 Years of Science for America." He will talk about…
“The sixth ‘mass extinction event’ in the history of planet Earth is currently under way, with over two hundred species dying off every day. Will Homo…
Edmund A. Hajim ’58, financier, philanthropist, and chairman emeritus of the University of Rochester Board of Trustees, will share stories and lessons…
Lauren Alexandra Haley is a violinist, pedagogy expert, and the author of Kids Aren’t Lazy: Developing Motivation & Talent Through Music.
In…
Harper's lecture, "The Life of Minik," describes an Inuit boy's life after being taken by explorer Robert Peary from Greenland to New York City in…
Noted editor at the Washington Post, John Harris will talk about his new book about presidential politics, The Way to Win. Its thesis is that the two…
Blues to Rock: Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page Discover Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters: Academia and pop culture will collide and Rush Rhees will be hip…
Cristina Henríquez is the author of Come Together, Fall Apart: A Novella and Stories, The World in Half, and most recently, The Book of Unknown…
Peter Blair Henry, economist and former Dean of New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Music, is the April Neilly Series Lecture…
Oscar Hijuelos, acclaimed Pulitzer Prize winning author of the international bestseller The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, will present "From…
Join the University of Rochester community as we read and discuss the same book: Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill. The Book: Someone Knows My…
Lauren Holmes was born in upstate New York. She received her BA from Wellesley College and MFA from Hunter College. Her first book, Barbara the Slut…
Marie Howe’s new volume of poetry, The Kingdom of Ordinary Time, explores the difference between the self and the soul, the secular and the sacred,…
Paris Under Water: how the City of Light Survived the Great Flood of 1910: After weeks of torrential rainfall, the Seine overflowed, sending hundreds…
Acclaimed novelist and poet Ha Jin will discuss his work, including his latest novel, War Trash, winner of the 2005 Pen/Faulkner Award. His earlier…
Edward P. Jones' recently published novel The Known World won a National Book Critics Circle Award and a Pulitzer Prize. His short stories have…
Published in April 2014, American Past Time tells the story of the disintegration and redemption of a family after the father, a minor league baseball…
In 1818, Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, creating the iconic concept, and incidentally creating modern science fiction. In 1935, Elsa Lanchester…
Humorist and playwright Kevin Kling has expressed himself in many different arenas: theatre, television, radio, recording, and literature. His plays,…
Lily Koppel is the New York Times bestselling author of The Astronaut Wives Club, in which she gives readers a behind-the-scenes look at the lives of…
Rochesterian Nancy Kress has written more than twenty-three books and won four Nebula Awards and a Hugo for her science fiction writing. A one-time…
“Without time, we cannot learn. Without time, we cannot heal.” -Allen Kurzweil
Novelist, journalist, teacher, and inventor, Allen Kurzweil shares his…
David Kwong is a magician, crossword puzzle constructor, producer, and author. He routinely creates crossword puzzles for the New York Times, Los…
The guest speaker for the first of this season's Neilly Series Lectures is Harlan Lane, Distinguished University professor of psychology at…
Paul Lauter was incredibly active throughout the movements for social change during the 1960s. The ways in which he participated are extensive. In his…
The first Neilly Series Lecture of the academic year will be held Wednesday, October 24th with one of America's leading authors, Chang-rae Lee,…
Lewis will discuss his latest book The Hudson: A History. He is also author of Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio and Divided Highways: The…
Susie Linfield, Associate Professor of Journalism at New York University, will speak at the Neilly Series Lecture on "Photojournalism and Human…
Joann S. Lublin is a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist and management news editor for The Wall Street Journal. She was one of the first female…
Ann-Marie MacDonald will begin her North American tour at the River Campus Libraries! MacDonald, author of the best-selling Fall on Your Knees, will…
In this talk, Manuel will discuss his memoir, My Time Will Come, which details his rocky journey on the road to redemption, after being sentenced to…
Edward Mendelson, UR Class of 1966, is Literary Executor of the Estate of W.H. Auden and Lionel Trilling Professor in the Humanities at Columbia…
Leslie Adrienne Miller's poetry has won numerous prizes and awards, and has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. She is currently…
Author and Lawyer Robert J. Miller is the March Neilly Series Lecture speaker. Miller is a member of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma and a…
Women's Rights: What's Not in the History Books: March is Women's History Month and Miriam Grace Monfredo will speak about the women's rights movement…
A Beautiful Mind: Genius, Madness, Reawakening: Sylvia Nasar, author and professor of journalism at Columbia University, will recount the story of…
Senior lecturer at Harvard Business School in the Entrepreneurial Management unit, Laura Nash will explore critical problems with dominant models of…
In a wonderful millennium gift, Life Trustee Andrew H. Neilly and his wife, Janet, established a named, endowed library position at the University…
Jenny Nordberg is an award-winning journalist, columnist, and television producer. She has worked around the globe reporting on nuclear proliferation,…
The Influence of the Yiddish Theater on American Pop Culture: In its heyday in the 20's, the Yiddish theater had over 11 Broadway style houses in…
Journey with one doctor from the nation's oldest and most legendary public hospital as she navigates the eye-opening cultural permutations of today's…
She went before the Supreme Court and won. In 2004, she successfully argued that detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, should be able to challenge their…
For over three decades, Americans have lived with an epidemic that has now become almost invisible. But earlier in the arc from past to present,…
David Owen, author of Copies in Seconds: How a Lone Inventor and an Unknown Company Created the Biggest Communication Breakthrough Since…
Mark Pachter, Director of the National Portrait Gallery, will discuss "The Making of an American Icon: George Washington and Gilbert Stuart." There is…
John Palattella will discuss magazines and literary culture in the present economic and publishing climate. He is literary editor of The Nation, the…
Linda Sue Park, author of A Single Shard, won the 2002 Newbery Medal just two years after her first book was published. But her 'overnight' success…
David J. Peterson is a language inventor and the creator of the Dothraki and Valyrian languages for HBO’s television series Game of Thrones. He is the…
ohn Pickstone on “Describing, Analysing and Controlling Life: The Past and Present of Bio-medical (& other) Sciences.” Pickstone is the author…
Dan Rattiner is best known for creating Dan's Papers , the largest circulating newspaper in the Hamptons. Founded in Montauk in 1960 as the first free…
Ritter served as a military intelligence officer, reaching the rank of major. He was formerly an arms control inspector in the former Soviet Union and…
Roberts' lecture, "Gestating Jazz: The Mexican Tour of 1885," explores the Latin "tinge" in ragtime and jazz. Roberts has documented and promoted…
From the late nineteenth century through the mid-twentieth century, American physicians treated women and girls for masturbation by removing the…
David Ropeik, Director of Risk Communication at the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis, will talk about "Risk Perception. Why Our Fears Don't Match the…
Deceit and Denial: The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution, which chronicles the history of environmental and industrial illness, is authored by…
The Critic, The Reader, and The Poet: Literary Authority in Postwar America: Belligerent readers and a beleaguered critic are the topic of the first…
The November 1st Neilly Series Lecture will be held in San Francisco, with Benjamin Sáenz as the guest speaker. Sáenz was raised in New Mexico,…
Joseph Sassoon, the guest speaker for the last of this season's Neilly Series Lectures, is the author of Saddam Hussein's Ba'th Party: Inside an…
Born and educated in Albion, Michigan, Ruth Holland Scott is an educator, author, and businesswoman who was the first African-American woman elected…
Andrew Scull has held faculty appointments at the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, and the University of California--San Diego, where…
What makes a person a person? What combination of heredity and environment, nature and nurture, shapes our lives and forms our identity? After a…
Johanna Skibsrud’s first novel, The Sentimentalists, won the Scotiabank Giller Prize, Canada’s most prestigious literary prize, in 2010. The book was…
"Seward: Lincoln's Indispensable Man": The first Neilly Series Lecture in 2014 will be presented by Walter Stahr, a highly acclaimed biographer…
Anne Stiles, an expert on the intersection between science and literature during the Victorian era, presents the Neilly Lecture, “Rewriting the Rest…
Arthur Sze will discuss "Tyuonyi: Multicultural Perspectives on Poetry." Tyounyi, a Keresan word, is the name of a meeting place situated in…
Composer Hilary Tann, composer-in-residence for the Women in Music Festival at the Eastman School of Music, will reflect on the role of poetry in her…
Thajan is an award winning filmmaker and activist. Her documentary Whose Children Are These? provides a gripping view into the lives of three Muslim…
Sanford Thatcher will discuss open access, which is viewed by librarians and their allies in academic administration as an antidote to the domination…
Kristel Thornell was born in Sydney, Australia, and has lived in Italy, Mexico, Canada, Finland and, currently, is based in Rochester, NY. Her debut…
Paula Treichler, Professor in the College of Medicine, the Gender & Women's Studies Program, and the Institute for Communications Research at the…
One of the most prolific African American authors of his time, John A. Williams (1925–2015) made his mark as a journalist, educator, and…
Dubravka Ugresic is an Amsterdam-based author who has established herself as one of Europe’s most distinctive novelists and essayists.
Born in the…
Abraham Verghese is a renowned physician, best-selling author, and Professor for the Theory and Practice of Medicine at the Stanford University School…
Kim J. Vicente, author of The Human Factor: Revolutionizing the Way People Live with Technology, will discuss how we can bridge the widening gap…
Stewart Weaver, Professor of British History at the University of Rochester, will present "Because It Was There: Mallory, Everest, And The 1920s."…
Pulitzer Prize winner, Tim Weiner, examines the history of the CIA from its creation after World War II, through its battles in the cold war and the…
"Inevitably, a Romantic." A discussion of Romanticism and its relation to American culture since the 1960s. Social critic, essayist, and novelist,…
Whiteman has published extensively as a poet and reviewer, and has written a number of books about bibliography, printing and literary history. He is…
John Noble Wilford is a senior science writer at The New York Times who, for over three decades, covered many major missions of the US space program.…
Winchester is the acclaimed author of the international bestsellers The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the…
The author will discuss his forthcoming biography of Willie Mays, tracing the life of the great baseball player from segregated Birmingham to the…
Carla Yanni will discuss her most recent book, The Architecture of Madness: Insane Asylums in the United States. Yanni tells the story of therapeutic…
Our brains are the foundation for who were are—they store our memories, give rise to our emotions, and enable us to look to the future. But our brains…
Homerin's lecture, "Translating Islam," presents several views of Islam's creative diversity and culture, the origin and persistence of Western…