Music in American Lives
What role has music played in shaping and preserving U.S. history?
Competing Worldviews with Jennifer A. Lind
In the aftermath of the Cold War, Francis Fukuyama, Samuel Huntington and John Mearsheimer published seminal articles offering competing worldviews. Did the end of the 20th-century Cold War mean "The End of History," "The Clash of Civilizations" or "The Tragedy of Great Power Politics?"
Roaring into the Second Half of Life: A Conversation with Michael Clinton
How can we re-imagine life after 50 to realize the full potential of midlife and beyond? And how might such an approach to longevity shape our economy and society?
Funeral Games in the Iliad
In Book 23 of the Iliad, between the burning of Patroclus’ body and Priam’s dramatic meeting with Achilles, roughly 600 lines are devoted to athletic contests among the Greeks. This lecture will offer some thoughts about what this scene is doing here, what it means and what it can tell us about games in general.
“Seeking the land of the Greeks in my soul”: Ancient Greece in German Culture around 1800
This First Friday Lecture is supported by the Class Gift given by the 2023 graduates of the Basic Program of Liberal Education for Adults. In his 1787 drama Iphigenia in Tauris, based on Euripides’ tragedy of the same name, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe has the stranded Greek princess Iphigenia recount how she wandered the foreign shores…...
What Young Leaders Want from Older Allies
America today is one of the most age-diverse societies in history. Sadly, it is also one of the most age segregated, with older and younger people’s paths rarely crossing outside of families. But what would happen if older and younger people were more actively working together to solve the biggest problems of our day? Watch…...
Three Modes of Persuasion in Plato’s Phaedo
This First Friday Lecture is supported by gifts made in memory of Basic Program Instructor Claudia Traudt. Plato’s dialogue Phaedo tells the story of Socrates’ last day, with Socrates holding a conversation with his friends in his jail cell as he is preparing to have his death sentence carried out. Throughout the dialogue, Plato depicts Socrates attempts…...
Learning to Love Midlife
How can we lean in and embrace the opportunities presented by midlife? Watch our conversation with Chip Conley, New York Times bestselling author and founder and CEO of the Modern Elder Academy. Our conversation with Chip will explore his latest book, Learning to Love Midlife: 12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better with Age.
Your Next Chapter Matters A Conversation with Michelle Seitz
Your Next Chapter Matters is a virtual conversation series with distinguished individuals who have activated encore chapters of leadership for society. In this conversation, we speak with LSI Advisor Michelle Seitz, former Chair and CEO of Russell Investments, about her next chapter of leadership as the founder of MeydenVest Partners, where she partners “with world…...
Getting Retirement Right
What are the challenges of retiring from a longstanding and accomplished career? And how do you overcome them? Watch our conversation with bestselling author and visionary leader Rick Smith. Rick recently co-authored “The Challenges of Retiring from a High-Powered Job” (Harvard Business Review) based on interviews with dozens of executives. We speak with Rick about…...
Those Who Have Dared to Hymn Love’s Praises
As the academic study of love continues to grow, whether in the largely European field of “love studies” or in the more disciplinary discourses of the American academy one sentiment seems to remain: love has largely been ignored in intellectual discourse due to its complexity and nuance. These academics’ concerns echo Phaedrus in Plato’s Symposium:…...
The Invention of the Scientist
The nineteenth century saw the advent of the scientist as both a word and a concept. The “natural philosopher,” whose purview had for centuries been a theoretical understanding of the world, was replaced by a different kind of expert: the scientist (a word coined in 1834), whose expertise was practical and pertinent to a world…...