The William E. Massey, Sr., Lectures in the History of American Civilization is a series of

public lecture A public lecture (also known as an open lecture) is one means employed for educating the public. Gresham College, in London, has been providing free public lectures since its founding in 1597 through the will of Sir Thomas Gresham. The Royal S ...

s held every one or two years at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

since 1984. They are sponsored by the university's ''Program in the History of American Civilization'' and were endowed by an anonymous donor in honor of William E. Massey, former president of the A.T. Massey Coal Company.

Lecturers

* 1984 –

Eudora Welty Eudora Alice Welty (April 13, 1909 – July 23, 2001) was an American short-story writer, novelist and photographer who wrote about the American South. Her novel '' The Optimist's Daughter'' won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973. Welty received numerou ...

, ''One Writer's Beginnings'' * 1986 –

Irving Howe Irving Howe (né Horenstein; ; June 11, 1920 – May 5, 1993) was an American author, literary and social critic, and a key figure in the democratic socialist movement in the U.S. He co-founded and served as longtime editor of ''Dissent'' ma ...

, ''The American Newness: Culture and Politics in the Age of Emerson'' * 1988 – Lawrence W. Levine, ''Highbrow/Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America'' * 1988 –

Conor Cruise O'Brien Donal Conor David Dermot Donat Cruise O'Brien (3 November 1917 – 18 December 2008), often nicknamed "The Cruiser", was an Irish diplomat, politician, writer, historian and academic, who served as Minister for Posts and Telegraphs from 1973 ...

, ''God Land: Reflections on Religion and Nationalism'' * 1990 –

David Brion Davis David Brion Davis (February 16, 1927 – April 14, 2019) was an American intellectual and cultural historian, and a leading authority on slavery and abolition in the Western world. He was a Sterling Professor of History at Yale University, ...

, ''Revolutions: Reflections on American Equality and Foreign Liberations'' * 1992 –

Toni Morrison Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison (born Chloe Ardelia Wofford; February 18, 1931 – August 5, 2019), known as Toni Morrison, was an American novelist and editor. Her first novel, ''The Bluest Eye'', was published in 1970. The critically accl ...

, '' Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination'' * 1992 –

Gore Vidal Eugene Luther Gore Vidal ( ; born Eugene Louis Vidal, October 3, 1925 – July 31, 2012) was an American writer and public intellectual known for his acerbic epigrammatic wit. His novels and essays interrogated the Social norm, social and sexual ...

, ''Screening History'' * 1994 – Eugene D. Genovese, '' The Southern Tradition'' * 1995 –

Alfred Kazin Alfred Kazin (June 5, 1915 – June 5, 1998) was an American writer and literary critic. His literary reviews appeared in ''The New York Times'', the '' New York Herald-Tribune'', ''The New Republic'' and ''The New Yorker''. He wrote often a ...

, ''Writing Was Everything'' * 1996 – Stephen L. Carter, ''The Dissent of the Governed: A Meditation on Law, Religion, and Loyalty'' * 1997 –

Richard Rorty Richard McKay Rorty (October 4, 1931 – June 8, 2007) was an American philosopher, historian of ideas, and public intellectual. Educated at the University of Chicago and Yale University, Rorty's academic career included appointments as the Stu ...

, '' Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in Twentieth-Century America'' * 1999 –

Andrew Delbanco Andrew H. Delbanco (born 1952) is an American writer and professor. He is the Alexander Hamilton Professor of American Studies at Columbia University and the president of the Teagle Foundation. He is the author of many books, including ''The W ...

, ''The Real American Dream: A Meditation on Hope'' * 2000 –

Maxine Hong Kingston Maxine Hong Kingston (; born Maxine Ting Ting Hong; October 27, 1940) is an American novelist. She is a professor emerita at the University of California, Berkeley, where she graduated with a B.A. in English in 1962. Kingston has written three ...

''To Be the Poet'' * 2003 –

E. L. Doctorow Edgar Lawrence Doctorow (January 6, 1931 – July 21, 2015) was an American novelist, editor, and professor, best known for his works of historical fiction. He wrote twelve novels, three volumes of short fiction and a stage drama, including the ...

, ''Reporting the Universe'' * 2004 –

Robert Venturi Robert Charles Venturi Jr. (June 25, 1925 – September 18, 2018) was an American architect, founding principal of the firm Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates. Together with his wife and partner, Denise Scott Brown, he helped shape the way that ...

and

Denise Scott Brown Denise Scott Brown (née Lakofski; born October 3, 1931) is an American architect, planner, writer, educator, and principal of the firm Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates in Philadelphia. Early life and education Born to Jewish parents Simon a ...

, ''Architecture as Signs and Systems: For a Mannerist Time'' * 2004 – John Demos, ''Circles and Lines: The Shape of Life in Early America'' * 2005 – Jayati Ghosh, ''The Economics of the American Empire: Fierceness and Fragility'' * 2008 –

Joan C. Williams Joan Chalmers Williams is an American law professor who is Distinguished Professor of Law (Emerita) at University of California College of the Law, San Francisco. She has published 12 books and 116 academic articles in law, sociology, psychology ...

, ''Obama Eats Arugula: Reshaping the Electoral and Everyday Politics of Work and Family'' * 2009 –

Eric Foner Eric Foner (; born February 7, 1943) is an American historian. He writes extensively on American political history, the history of freedom, the early history of the Republican Party, African American biography, the American Civil War, Reconstr ...

, ''The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery'' * 2011 –

Sally Mann Sally Mann (born Sally Turner Munger; May 1, 1951) is an American photographer known for making large format black and white photographs of people and places in her immediate surroundings: her children, husband, and rural landscapes, as well as ...

, ''If Memory Serves'' * 2012 –

Gish Jen Gish Jen (born Lillian Jen; () August 12, 1955) is a contemporary American writer and speaker.Matsukawa, Yuko"MELUS interview: Gish Jen" ''MELUS'', Vol. 18, 1993 Early life and education Gish Jen is a second-generation Chinese American. Her pa ...

, ''Tiger Writing: Art, Culture and the Interdependent Self'' * 2013 –

Greil Marcus Greil Marcus (né Gerstley; born June 19, 1945) is an American author, music journalist and cultural critic. He is notable for producing scholarly and literary essays that place rock music in a broader framework of culture and politics. Biogra ...

, ''Three Songs, Three Singers, Three Nations'' * 2015 –

Linda Greenhouse Linda Joyce Greenhouse (born January 9, 1947) is an American legal journalist who is the Knight Distinguished Journalist in Residence and Joseph M. Goldstein Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School. She is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who has cove ...

, ''Just a Journalist: Reflections on Journalism, Life, and the Spaces Between'' * 2017 –

Winona LaDuke Winona LaDuke (born August 18, 1959) is an American environmentalist, writer, and industrial hemp grower, known for her work on tribal land claims and preservation, as well as sustainable development. In 1996 and 2000, she ran for vice president ...

, ''Climate Change, Indigenous Resistance, and Forging a New Democracy: Thoughts for the Present Moment''

References

{{reflist

External links

The Massey Lectures
American Studies, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University
Past Massey lectures and books
covering 1984 to 2003 Lecture series at Harvard University 1986 establishments in Massachusetts Recurring events established in 1986 History education in the United States