Past Events

9 results

9 results

AI and the Future of Higher Education

Mar. 30 - Mar 31, 2026
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All day
Higher education has been “in crisis” for decades. Some observers have sounded the alarm about skyrocketing tuition, decreasing economic return on investment, a loss of open-ended inquiry to ideological rigidity, widening socioeconomic gaps between those...
cambridge event photo

Arts and Humanities on the Edge

April 29, 2026
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6:00PM - 8:00PM EDT
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Harvard Hall 101
It is no secret that enrollment in arts and humanities courses is down, all across academia. Professors have been laid off, and whole departments have been eliminated in the past several years, as universities market their education as explicit career...
Photo via Wikimedia

Belonging in the Modern World?

June 16, 2026
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7:00PM - 9:00PM EDT
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Thompson Room (Barker Center 110)
America, we are reliably told, is coming apart. Individuals are drifting off into isolation, or, just as bad, clinging to toxic forms of tribalism that rely on exclusion and enmity towards the other. Why is this happening? What are the deep cultural...
ian image

Do Liberals Want a Beautiful World?

March 23, 2026
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7:00PM - 9:00PM EDT
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Thompson Room (Barker Center 110)
Salad chains, consultant-speak, Parks & Rec. Is this really the world that liberals want? Or, is there a more beautiful vision of what kind of world we could build together, what all of this liberty is for? This question is increasingly urgent, as self...
Berlin Utopia via Wikimedia Commons

How is digital technology shaping the human soul?

October 1, 2025
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3:30PM - 5:00PM EDT
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Thompson Room (Barker Center 110)
Digital technology is transforming how we think, write, and connect. Does it stifle creativity and wonder, or open new paths for meaning, community, and faith? Join speakers Nataliya Kos'myna, Brandon Vaidyanathan, E. Glen Weyl, and Moira Weigel as they...
Robert Seymour, The March of Intellect, 1828.

Religion in the American Story

January 28, 2026
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3:00PM - 5:00PM EST
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Thompson Room (Barker Center 110)
All around us are signs of anomie, loneliness and pessimism, driven by economic, technological, cultural and political realities. America went through a similar period of upheaval and discontentment in the early 19th century, and that period gave rise to...
A woman draped in white stands beneath the wing of an angel.

The Public Intellectual in American Life

February 25, 2026
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7:00PM - 9:00PM EST
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Harvard Hall 101
America has sometimes been described as a pragmatic, anti-intellectual society. But in fact, from the Puritans to the Founders to the New York intellectuals and the Civil Rights movement, many major movements in American life have drawn language and...
Guests at Langston Hughes Party via Wikimedia

What Rough Beast…? On AI’s Potential to Surpass Humanity

September 14, 2026
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4:00PM - 5:15PM EDT
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Lewis International Law Center 515
The recent explosion of AI capacity, along with booming prophecies about its limitless potential, arrive at a moment of unease. Across the developed world, trust in human beings, their institutions and the future they might build is at a nadir. There is a...
Great sphinx with human woman in foreground