Lecture Series and Films

The Eugene McDermott Lectureship provides a major endowment to support visiting lecturers and to encourage their stay on the campus for some time as visiting professors. Past visiting professors include the distinguished historian Jacques Barzun; Hans-Georg Gadamer, Walter Ong and Paul Ricoeur, noted philosophers; Malcolm Muggeridge, journalist and cultural critic; Erik Norberg-Schulz and Edward Bacon, internationally known architects; Erich Heller, literary critic; Seymour Slive, historian and former director of the Fogg Museum; Harvey Mansfield, distinguished political philosopher; Horton Foote, Oscar-winning director and writer; Allan Bloom, Donald and Louise Cowan and Paul Johnson, educators and writers; David Tracy, theologian; Yehudi Menuhin, musician; Leon Kass, physician/philosopher; René Girard, professor of French literature and civilization; Paul Goldberger, architectural critic; Derek Walcott, Nobel poet; Nigel Wood, international ceramic artist; Francis Cardinal Arinze; Francis Fukuyama, sociologist; Donald Kagan, classical historian; Bruce Coles, chairman of National Endowment for the Humanities; Maya Lin, architect; and Jonathan Miller, theater and opera director, author and physician; Mikhail Gorbachev, President of the Soviet Union; Mark Helprin, writer and commentator; Krzysztof Zanussi, award-winning Polish writer, director, and producer; Russ Douthat, Austen Ivereigh, John Allen, Jr., journalists.