The Harris Center is proud to present a broad and varied program of lectures annually, free and open to the public. Upcoming events are listed on the Harris Center event calendar. To be added to our mailing list, write to hcjs@unl.edu.
In addition our general Harris Center Lectures, which bring a wide range of scholars, writers, artists, and public figures to the UNL campus, the Center presents speakers through our six Endowed Lecture Series, made possible by the generosity of our friends in the community. Information on each lecture fund is listed below, followed by a link to a list of past lecturers.
The Kroon Lectures on environmental issues
Our newest endowed series, the Kroon Lectures will present speakers on Jewish attitudes to water resources and the environment.
Inaugural lecture:
- Alon Tal (Ben Gurion U), "Will the Environment Survive a Middle East Peace Process?"
The Kripke Lectures on timely topics in Jewish Studies
This annual series addresses timely and global issues in Jewish Studies, often presented in collaboration with UNL's E.N. Thompson Forum on World Issues.
Representative lectures:
- Ronald Dworkin (NYU and Oxford), “Democracy and Religion: America and Israel"
- Saul Sosnowski (U of Maryland), “Borges and the Kabbalah: A Pre-text to the Core"
- Sherwin B. Nuland (Yale School of Medicine), “Faith, Philosophy, and Medicine: Reflections on Maimonides"
- Michael Walzer (Institute for Advanced Study), “The Paradox of National Liberation: India, Israel, and Algeria"
The Krivosha Lectures
This series sponsors a wide range of lectures and readings by award-winning novelists, memoirists, poets, and artists, as well as lectures about Jewish law, history, literature, music, and art.
Representative programs:
- Steve Stern (Skidmore), author and two-time winner of the Jewish Book Award. Public reading.
- Marjorie Agosin (Wellesley), “Always From Somewhere Else: The Jewish Experience in L.A"
- John Felstiner (Stanford), “Still Songs to Sing: Poetry, Art, and Music From the Holocaust"
- Ezra Mendelsohn (Hebrew U), “Breaking Taboos: Jewish Art and Jewish History"
The Cunningham-Roth Lectures on interfaith issues
These programs highlight interfaith issues through lectures and presentations of music, theater, and art.
Programs presented in this series to date:
- Presentation of Life in a Jar: The Irena Sendler Project.
- Alan L. Berger (Florida Atlantic), “Am I My Brother’s Keeper?: Moral Courage During the Holocaust"
The Schlesinger Lectures on social justice
This series addresses social justice issues in comparative perspective, with the idea that the Jewish experience of persecution, enslavement, and genocide may share certain features with that the experience of others around the world.
Recent lectures:
- James Kofi Annan, Ghanaian activist and former child slave, speaking on his work to combat child slavery worldwide.
- Jorge Heine (Wilfred Laurier U; former Chilean Ambassador to South Africa), "Does Restorative Justice Work? Chile and South African Truth Commissions"
- Harvey Weinstein (UC Berkeley), "Transitional Justice, Reconciliation and Social Reconstruction?”
- Ari Kohen (University of Nebraska-Lincoln), “Sympathy, Personal Identification, and Mortality in Rwanda"
- Eric Reeves (Smith College), “A Long Day’s Dying: Genocide by Attrition in Darfur"
The Henry and Gretl Wald Lectures on the Holocaust
Programs in this series address Holocaust-related topics.
Representative lectures:
- Timothy Snyder (Yale), "Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin"
- Jonathan Petropoulos (Claremont-McKenna), "Art, Memory, and Law"
- Alvin H. Rosenfeld (Indiana U), “The Return of Anti-Semitism: The Intellectual Assault Against the Jews and the Jewish State"
- Deborah Lipstadt (Emory), “Holocaust Deniers: Flat Earthers or a Genuine Threat?”
