About the Lecture: The annual Gerald and Deanne Gitner Family College of Arts & Sciences Lecture is designed to highlight current CAS faculty members, in any field, whose teaching and research addresses topics of major importance for the broad interest and benefit of the BU community. It is held in the fall, usually in conjunction with Alumni Weekend.

About the Gitner Family: Gerald Gitner (CAS ’66) graduated with a B.A. in History, cum laude, and was elected to Phi Alpha Theta, the national history honor society. Additionally, he has an MBS from the Simon School of Business at the University of Rochester, where he is a member of the Simon Advisory Board. He is a Trustee Emeritus of Boston University (serving as Trustee 1984-1996) and a current member of the CAS Dean’s Advisory Board and the Pardee School for Global Studies Dean’s Advisory Board. Gitner is a principal of Cross Continent Capital LLC, an investment company he co-founded. He serves as Chairman of Global Aero Holdings Ltd. and D. G. Associates, Inc., and has a long and varied career as an executive, including serving as Chairman and CEO Of Trans World Airlines, Inc. and Vice Chairman of Pan American World Airways. This lecture series was established by Gitner and his wife, Deanne. Gitner and his family have long been generous and engaged members of the Boston University community.

—

Past Lectures

• 2021: Ray Fisman (Boston University, Department of Economics), “Hidden Influence in U.S. Politics”
• 2020: Kate Saenko (Boston University, Department of Computer Science), “Overcoming Dataset Bias in Artificial Intelligence.” You can read about it and watch the full lecture here.

About the Lecture: The annual Silas Peirce Lecture is open to all fields of inquiry covered in the College of Arts & Sciences, and is designed to represent different fields across the years. These lectures bring our academic community together across multiple disciplines, including colleges, and interest faculty, students, and alumni. Given Silas Peirce’s deep roots in the Boston area, topics of special relevance to this region are welcomed.

About Silas Peirce and the Fund: Silas Peirce (1860-1922) was associated with many businesses and Boston area charitable organizations. The family company, Silas Pierce & Co, which he led, was established by his great uncle in 1815, and the family’s summer home was on property in Scituate, Mass that had been occupied by his family since 1642. Pierce was treasurer of Boston University (1911-1922) and a University Trustee (1899-1922). The Silas Peirce fund was established by Pierce’s heirs with the intention of providing for special lectures at the College. This lecture series was reintroduced at Boston University in 2014 as one of the signature events of the academic calendar, with the intent of bringing the community together across multiple disciplines, including across colleges, through a topic of broad interest to faculty, students, and alumni.

Past Lectures

• 2022: Melissa Moore, “Exploring the Science of mRNA”
• 2021: Jennifer Eberhardt, “Biased–Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice that Shapes What We See, Think, and Do”
• 2020: Michael Bravo (University of Cambridge), “The Polar Garden of Eden: Voyages into Mythology and Ethnonationalism”
• 2019: Laura Dassow Walls (University of Notre Dame), “Henry David Thoreau’s Legacy of Resistance & Hope”
• 2018: Dell Upton (UCLA), “Black Liberation & White Supremacy: Commemorating the African-American Past in the Shadow of the Confederacy”
• 2017: Bill James, “The Arts and Sciences of Baseball”
• 2016: David Fischer (Brandeis University), “The Enduring Creativity of Afro-European Cultures in America”
• 2015: Tali Mendelberg (Princeton University), “The Silent Sex: Gender, Deliberation, and Institutions”
• 2014: Bethany Ehlmann (California Institute of Technology), “Following the Water on Mars: Roving with Curiosity”

Each year, the Howard Zinn Memorial Lecture brings the community together to hear a thought-provoking presentation on current issues from renowned scholars and thought leaders.

2022 Howard Zinn Memorial Lecture

• Date & time: Wednesday, March 30, 2022, 6 p.m.
• Title: Amend: Rewriting the U.S. Constitution
• Lecturer: Professor Jill Lepore (David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of American History, Harvard College Professor, and Affiliate Professor of Law)

The U.S. Constitution was always meant to be amended: fixed, added to, improved. But it has become one of the most difficult constitutions in the world to change. How did that happen? And what are its consequences? Join us for this year’s Howard Zinn Memorial Lecture, “Amend: Rewriting the U.S. Constitution,” with historian and author Jill Lepore.

Lepore is the David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of American History and Affiliate Professor of Law at Harvard University. She is also a staff writer at The New Yorker, and host of the podcast, The Last Archive. Her many books include These Truths: A History of the United States (2018), an international bestseller, named one of Time magazine’s top ten non-fiction books of the decade. This event will be available in person at the Tsai Performance Center, and online via livestream. This event will not be recorded.

This year’s lecture is cosponsored by Boston University Libraries, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Howard Zinn Memorial Lecture Series, College of Arts & Sciences, College of Fine Arts, College of General Studies, and BU Alumni Association.

—

About the Lecture: The Howard Zinn Memorial Lecture was established in 2008 to be a stimulating and energizing memorial to the progressive political values Professor Howard Zinn embodied as a writer, teacher, and mentor. Howard Zinn (1922–2010) was a longtime professor in BU’s Department of Political Science. Renowned for his work as a historian, author, professor, playwright, and activist, he wrote dozens of books, including A People’s History of the United States. His work focused on a wide range of issues, including race, class, war, and history. More information about his life and work is available at howardzinn.org.

About Howard Zinn and the Fund: Howard Zinn was an author, a history professor, and a political 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 twenty-four years, from 1964 to 1988. He was a hero of the political left, a consistent and cogent critic of American policies, both domestic and international. He is best known for his 1980 book A People’s History of the United States, which countered the premise that history must be written by and for society’s “winners.” A television documentary released in 2009, The People Speak, translated Zinn’s work to the screen for yet another generation of progressive thinkers. The Howard Zinn Memorial Lecture is made possible by a generous gift from Alex MacDonald, Esq. (CAS’72), and his late wife Maureen A. Strafford, MD (MED’76).

Past Lectures

• 2020: Ibram X. Kendi, Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University, professor of history, and founding director of BU’s Center for Antiracist Research. You can read a recap on BU Today.