Jonathan Lear gave the Contemporary Civilization Course-wide Lecture on Friday April 17, 2009 in the Miller Theatre. Though geared at CC students and their faculty, the lecture was open to all.

On Wednesday April 11, 2007, Uday Mehta delivered the Spring 2007 Contemporary Civilization Course-wide Lecture in Lerner Hall at 6:00 PM, entitled “Freedom, Violence and the Ruling of Others.”.

On Friday, April 8, 2005, in Roone Arledge Auditorium in Lerner Hall, K. Anthony Appiah, the Laurance S. Rockefeller University of Philosophy at Princeton University delivered the Contemporary Civilization Coursewide Lecture. Entitled “The Problem of the Twenty-First Century: Du Bois and Cosmopolitanism”, the lecture discussed W.E.B. Du Bois’s ideas about race as a prelude to thinking about cosmopolitanism.

On Friday, September 30 at 11 a.m. in Roone Arledge Auditorium in Lerner Hall, Professor Martha Nussbaum, of the University of Chicago delivered the Contemporary Civilization Coursewide Lecture, entitled “The Arbitrariness of Canons: The Neglect of Hellenistic Philosophy and Why It Is A Bad Thing.”

Catharine MacKinnon, Elizabeth A. Long Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School, delivered the Contemporary Civilization Coursewide Lecture in April, 2004. Professor MacKinnon is a pioneer in feminist legal theory, specializing in sex equality issues under constitutional and international law. Professor MacKinnon's lecture was entitled "Women's World, Men's States."

Elaine Pagels, the Harrington Spear Paine Professor of Religion at Princeton University, delivered the Contemporary Civilization Lecture in October, 2004. Professor Pagels' lecture was entitled "Which Jesus? The Newly Discovered Gospel of Thomas Challenges the Cannon."

President of Columbia University Lee Bollinger addressed students on "Democracy and the University" during the Spring 2003 Contemporary Civilization lecture. His teaching and scholarship focus on free speech and the first amendment, on which he has published widely.

One of the world's leading historians, Professor Skinner addressed students on the "Three Concepts of Liberty." His major contributions have been to intellectual history, the history of political thought, and to political theory, and his interests have centered especially on the political philosophy of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and their relevance to contemporary political theory.

I have chosen to talk about Kant in this lecture because I take him to be a wonderful illustration of the premise of Contemporary Civilization – namely that ideas deeply imbedded in the traditions we inherit fundamentally shape current social issues. Kant’s most significant books – The Critique of Pure Reason and The Critique of Practical Reason – were published more than 200 years ago. Yet those writings continue to influence every one of us because whether we know it or not we are all Kantians...

Henry Ford II Professor Emeritus of the Social Sciences at Harvard University Daniel Bell delivered the Fall 2002 Contemporary Civilzation Lecture. He is a scholar in residence of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a past professor of sociology, Columbia University.

How To Be Happy Though Good: Three Views by Professor Jerome Schneewind of Johns Hopkins University.

China and the West: Cultural Contacts, Cultural Collisions, by Professor Jonathan Spence of Yale University.

Starry Messages: Galileo Rewrites the Book of the Heavens by Professor Anthony Grafton of Princeton University.

Politics, Psychology, and Sex in The City of God by Professor Garry Wills.

Plato's Republic, I hope, is one of the most disturbing books you have ever read: a casual conversation about old age, through an immense series of small steps, to which, though most seem reasonable, we are never allowed to object (Glaucon and Adeimantus are always there ahead of us with their unending "Yes, of course, Socrates"), results in an obsessively detailed description of a social organization in which most people in this room, despite our qualifications, would have ended up either as laborers or soldiers through no obvious choice of our own...