The Roxanne M. Kaufman Lecture As a teenage actress in 1920s Austria, performing on the stage and in film in light comedies and musicals, Hedy Kiesler, with her exotic beauty, was heralded across Europe by her mentor, Max Reinhardt. However, it was her nude scene, and surprising dramatic ability, in Ecstasy that made her a […]

The Irene and Curry Roberts Lecture For six decades John Robert Lewis (1940–2020) was a towering figure in the struggle for civil rights in the United States. As an activist and progressive congressman, he was renowned for his unshakable integrity, indomitable courage, and determination to get into “good trouble.” John Lewis: In Search of the […]

The Coldwell Banker Elite Lecture Bulent’s new book, Beyond Genius, is more ambitious than his earlier books on Leonardo da Vinci. Positing that genius comes in degrees, from “ordinary” to “magician” to “transformative,” he examines the internal and external conditions that produced hundreds of extraordinarily brilliant men and women. Ultimately, he makes the main focus […]

The UMW Museums Lecture Admired by George Washington, ridiculed by Thomas Jefferson, published in London, and read far and wide, Phillis Wheatley led one of the most extraordinary American lives. Seized in West Africa and forced into slavery as a child, she was sold to a merchant family in Boston, where she became a noted […]