Arts & Sciences Lecture Series
Join us for one of our annual lectures, highlighting scholarship across the College and the entire academic world
The Arts & Sciences Lecture Series at Boston University celebrates bold ideas and interdisciplinary dialogue through three signature events: the Howard Zinn Memorial Lecture, honoring the progressive legacy of historian and activist Howard Zinn; the Silas Peirce Lecture, fostering community across disciplines with thought-provoking discussions; and the Gitner Family Lecture, spotlighting leaders whose work addresses issues of broad significance. Together, these lectures embody the spirit of Arts × Sciences—a multiplier of knowledge and possibilities.
Zinn Lecture Gitner Lecture Peirce Lecture
Next Up!
Silas Peirce Lecture
Speaker: Sarah Stillman, staff writer at The New Yorker and professor at Yale
Tuesday, February 10, 2026
CDS 1750
Sarah Stillman is a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine and a professor in the practice in the Department of English at Yale. She has reported on topics ranging from civil forfeiture to debtors’ prisons, and from Mexico’s drug cartels to Bangladesh’s garment-factory workers. She won the 2012 National Magazine Award for Public Interest for her reporting from Iraq and Afghanistan on labor abuses and human trafficking on United States military bases, and also received the Michael Kelly Award, the Overseas Press Club’s Joe and Laurie Dine Award for international human-rights reporting, and the Hillman Prize for Magazine Journalism.
Much of Stillman’s work focuses on social inequality, particularly within the U.S. criminal justice system. Her reporting on the high-risk use of young people as confidential informants in the war on drugs received a George Polk Award in 2012; she has also covered the rise of the private probation industry, for-profit immigrant detention, and abuses within the juvenile justice system. Before joining The New Yorker, Stillman wrote about America’s wars overseas and the challenges facing soldiers at home for the Washington Post, Slate, TheAtlantic.com, and more. Previously, she co-taught a residential college seminar at Yale on the Iraq War, and also ran a creative-writing workshop for four years at the Cheshire Correctional Institution, a maximum-security men’s prison in Connecticut. Her work is included in “The Best American Magazine Writing 2012.”
More recently, Stillman became director of the Global Migration Program at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where she taught a course on “Gender and Migration” and mentors post-graduate fellows on a range of refugee-related reporting projects.
About the Arts & Sciences Lecture Series
The Howard Zinn Memorial Lecture was established in 2008 to be a stimulating and energizing memorial to the progressive political values of Professor Howard Zinn (1922–2010), a historian, author, professor, playwright, mentor, and activist whose writings changed the lives of BU students and readers around the world. Zinn taught in the College of Arts & Sciences’ political science department for 24 years, from 1964 to 1988, and wrote dozens of books, including A People’s History of the United States. The Howard Zinn Memorial Lecture is made possible by the Zinn Lecture Fund, thanks to a generous gift from Alex MacDonald, Esq. (CAS’72), and his late wife Maureen A. Strafford, MD (MED’76).
The Silas Peirce Lecture, reintroduced in 2014, is designed to foster a sense of community among faculty, students, and alumni across multiple disciplines and colleges. Named after Silas Peirce (1860-1922), a prominent Boston businessman and philanthropist who served as treasurer and trustee of Boston University, the lecture honors Peirce’s legacy and deep roots in the Boston area. The lecture is open to all fields of inquiry across the liberal arts and sciences and designed to represent diverse disciplines over the years. The Silas Peirce fund, established by his heirs, ensures the continuation of these special lectures, which aim to bring together the academic community through engaging and thought-provoking discussions.
The Gerald and Deanne Gitner Family College of Arts & Sciences Lecture
The Gerald and Deanne Gitner Family College of Arts & Sciences Lecture, held annually in the fall, is designed to highlight thought leaders in any field, whose teaching, research, or service address topics of major importance for the broad interest and benefit of the BU community. The Gitner Lecture is made possible by Gerald Gitner (CAS’66) and his wife, Deanne, who have long been generous and engaged members of the Boston University community. Gitner, who graduated from the college with a degree in history, is a Trustee Emeritus of BU and a current member of the CAS Dean’s Advisory Board and the Pardee School for Global Studies Dean’s Advisory Board.