The spring semester at Hamilton doesn't begin until January 19 but you might want to mark your calendars for the following upcoming events. A number of world-renowned authors, artists and activists will be heating up discussions on the Hill this spring. By no means is this list complete -- watch this site for more lecture announcements as the semester begins.
Consumer advocate Ralph Nader will visit Hamilton for a lecture on Tuesday, Feb. 10, at 8 p.m in the Chapel. Nader, one of America's most effective social critics, has been called everything from Muckraker to Consumer Crusader to Public Defender. His documented criticism of government and industry has had widespread effect on public awareness and bureaucratic power. He is the "U.S.'s toughest customer" as Time magazine noted. Sponsored by the Levitt Center.
From activist to artist, Ultra Violet (Isabelle Collin Dufresne) presents a portrait of her friend and collaborator, Andy Warhol, on Wednesday, Feb. 11 at 4:30 p.m. in Wellin Hall. A pupil and muse to Salvador Dali in the 1950s and a superstar in Warhol's legendary factory in the late 1960s, Ultra Violet wrote the Warhol tribute Famous for Fifteen Minutes in 1987. Sponsored by the Ralph E. & Doris M. Hansmann Lecture Fund. Book signing and reception in the Emerson Gallery, 6-7 p.m.
Dartmouth College Professor of Classics James Tatum will present the Classics department's Winslow Lecture: "Literacy and Liberation: African-American Writers and The Classical Tradition" on Thursday, Feb. 26, at 4:10 p.m. Tatum's most recent book is The Mourner's Song: War And Remembrance From The Iliad To Vietnam. Location TBA.
Internationally renowned philosopher Richard Rorty will speak as part of the Truax Lecture Series in Philosophy on Monday, March 1. Rorty is Professor of Comparative Literature and, by courtesy, of Philosophy, at Stanford University. His lecture will begin at 7 p.m. in the Fillius Events Barn.
Richard Rhodes, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, will lecture on the topic on Wednesday, March 3, at 8 p.m. in the Chapel. Author of 18 other books, including Dark Sun and Why They Kill, his latest work, Masters of Death, follows the murderous trail of Hitler's special task forces -- in German, Einsatzgruppen -- organized by SS-Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler and his second in command, Reinhard Heydrich, the "Blond Beast."
Author Dayton Duncan will present "Lewis and Clark: The 'Writingest' Explorers," on Thursday, March 4 at 7:30 p.m., location TBA. Sponsored by the Writing Center, the Dean of Faculty, the Department of History, and the American Studies Program.
Duncan has been involved for many years with the work of documentary filmmaker Ken Burns. Duncan wrote and co-produced "Lewis and Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery," a 4-hour documentary that attained the second-highest ratings in the history of PBS. He was a consultant on Burns' award-winning series for public television, "The Civil War" and "Baseball," and was co-writer and consulting producer for a 12-hour series about the history of the American West which won the Erik Barnouw Award from the Organization of American Historians. Duncan's next film project with Burns is a biography of Mark Twain.
Public intellectual, entrepreneur, and political activist Russell Simmons will visit Hamilton as the third guest in The C. Christine Johnson Voices of Color Lecture Series. Simmons will speak at Hamilton on March 11 at 8 p.m., location TBA. Simmons, the founder of Def Jam Records, brought black, hip-hop culture into the American mainstream, and his empire is growing.
Author Susan Sontag will present the Tolles Lecture on Saturday, April 3 at 8 p.m. in Wellin Hall. One of America's best-known and most admired writers, Susan Sontag was born in New York City in 1933, grew up in Tucson, Arizona, and attended high school in Los Angeles. She received her B.A. from the College of the University of Chicago and did graduate work in philosophy, literature, and theology at Harvard University and Saint Anne's College, Oxford.
Her books, all published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, include four novels, The Benefactor, Death Kit, The Volcano Lover, and In America; a collection of short stories, I, etcetera; a play, Alice in Bed; and six works of nonfiction. In 1982, FSG published A Susan Sontag Reader.
More details about each of these lectures will be forthcoming. Watch the Hamilton College Web site for additional information and news about other lectures this spring.
