Hill Stops
More than 100 experts, performers, writers, and artists visit Hamilton each year — and that’s in addition to the dozens of alumni who return to offer students career-related advice. To give you an idea of the breadth and variety of topics covered by campus guests, here’s a sampling of 40 from 2022-23.
“Memorialization and the Foundations of Democracy: A Civic Dialogue on Reimagining Pasts and Futures”
Louis-Alexandre Berg Assistant professor of political science (Georgia State University)
“Governing Security: Restructuring Police and Military Forces after Civil War”
Jake Blount ’17, Folk musicianMet with students in a dance class and the Days-Massolo Center
Squire Booker, Professor of chemistry, biochemistry, and molecular biology (The Pennsylvania State University)
“A Radical Solution for C(sp3)–C(sp3) Bond Formation during the Biosynthesis of Macrocyclic Membrane Lipids”
Max Boot, Washington Post columnist and author
discussed the War in Ukraine and American Foreign Policy as part of the Common Ground seriesMegan Brandow-Faller, Professor of history (City University of New York Kingsborough)
“The Female Secession: Women, Art, and Design”
David Brody, managing attorney of the Digital Justice Initiative, and Shoshana Weissmann, R Street’s digital director, “What Does Freedom Mean in Online Speech?” as part of the Common Ground series
Angela Davis, Professor, author, and activist“Welcoming Change”
Peter Demerath, Professor, co-coordinator, Graduate Programs in Education Policy and Leadership (University of Minnesota)
“Producing Equity: Emotion Culture and Building Academic Mindsets in a High-Performing U.S. Urban High School”
Wawa Gatheru, Climate storyteller and founder, Black Girl Environmentalist
Anne Giblin, Senior scientist and director, The Ecosystems Center, Marine Biological Laboratory, University of Chicago
“How Salt Marshes are Responding to Sea Level Rise”
Joe Goodkin, Chicago-based musician performing his 17-song adaptation of the Iliad, titled “The Blues of Achilles”
Jeffrey Green, Professor and director of the Andrea Mitchell Center for the Study of Democracy (University of Pennsylvania)
“Never Could Learn to Drink that Blood and Call It Wine: Bob Dylan as Prophet of the Postsecular”
“On Thin Ice: Exploring the epicenter of the climate crisis”
Donté Hayes, ArtistLecture and discussion in conjunction with the 10th-anniversary exhibit Dialogues Across Disciplines: Building a Teaching Collection at the Wellin Museum
Calvin Hui, Associate professor of Chinese studies in modern languages and literatures (College of William & Mary)
“The Art of Useless Fashion, Media, and Consumer Culture in Contemporary China”
Lester Johnson, Blackfeet/Cree tribal member and educator
Discussed tribal land rights and the community’s fight for the Badger-Two Medicine wilderness area
Stanley Kaye ’74, Director of research, National Spherical Torus Experiment-Upgrade, Plasma Physics Laboratory (Princeton University)
“Magnetic Fusion Energy: Progress and Challenges”
Priyanka Khanna ’04, NovelistReading from her debut book, All the Right People
Mikhail Komin, Political scientist and researcher formerly with the Center for Advanced Governance, a think tank centered on public policy and policy evaluation in Russia
“Russia’s Protest Movement and Independent Media in Exile”
Kossi Komla-Ebri, Medical doctor, author, and activist
“Afrofobia: Racism Directed at Black Africans in Italy”
Michael Kotutwa Johnson, Member of the Hopi tribe in Arizona; faculty member and assistance specialist, Indigenous Resiliency Center, Native American Advancement, Initiatives & Research
“Faith-Based Farming”
Andrei Kozyrev, former foreign minister of Russia, and Nicolai Petro, scholar (University of Rhode Island), discussed the war in Ukraine as part of the Common Ground series
Shane Larson, Research professor of physics (Northwestern University)
“Gravity and Light: Using Multi-Messenger Astronomy to See the Cosmos”
Kathryn Lofton, Professor of religious studies and American studies, dean of humanities (Yale University)“Transphobia as Religious Practice: The Pulpit of Performative Reason”
“Cassandra Fedele and the Political Spectacle of Old Age in Early Modern Venice”
Flo Milli, Class & Charter Day concert headliner
Jahnel Nisbett, Junior Minister for the Ministry of Health, Gender Affairs, Social Services, and Community Affairs, Nevis Island Administration
“Diversifying Collections” Panel Discussion
Jonathan Overpeck ’79, Climate scientist and the Samuel A. Graham Dean of the School for Environment and Sustainability (University of Michigan)“Climate Change 2023: Challenges and Opportunities”
Ruth Ozeki, Filmmaker, novelist, Zen Buddhist priest, and winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2022
Robert Palmieri, Mayor of Utica, N.Y.
“Building an Inclusive City”
Kamila Shamsie ’94, Novelist
Reading from her latest novel, Best of Friends
Aaron Shapiro, Assistant professor of technology studies, Department of Communication (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
“Subscription: The Cultural and Moral Economy of a Business Model”
Despina Stratigakos, Professor of architecture (University at Buffalo)
“Hitler’s Building Plans for A World Under the Swastika”
Alfred Thomas, Professor of English (University of Illinois at Chicago)
“The White Sickness and the Brown Plague: Politics and Pandemic in Karel Capek’s Bílá nemoc and Albert Camus’ La peste”
Brad Weltman, director of privacy and public policy at Meta, and Jessica Rich, former director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection and head of its division of privacy and identity theft, discussed privacy and data concerns as part of the Common Ground seriesWilliam Wright ’71, Professor of biochemistry and molecular biology emeritus, Bloomberg School of Public Health (Johns Hopkins University)
“The Foundation of Male Fertility: The Regulation of Spermatogonial Stem Cells in the Mature Testis”
Ali Zildjian ’19, doctoral candidate (University of St Andrews), discussed research on dedications in early modern books
