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. It typically occurs in the Fall semester.

2021 Howard Zinn Memorial Lecture: TBD

2020 Howard Zinn Memorial Lecture

The 2020 Howard Zinn Memorial Lecture took the form of a conversation with Ibram X. Kendi, the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University, professor of history, and founding director of BU’s Center for Antiracist Research. Historian and Professor Nina Silber sat down with Professor Kendi to cover the full range of his work as an activist and leading historian of racism in America.

From his landmark book The Black Campus Movement: Black Students and the Racial Reconstitution of Higher Education, 1965–1972, which won the W. E. B. Du Bois Book Prize, to Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, which won the 2016 National Book Award for Nonfiction and was remixed as Stamped: Racism, Antiracism and You with Jason Reynolds, to his New York Times No. 1 best seller, How to Be an Antiracist, and his new book project, Bones of Inequity: A Narrative History of Racist Policies in America, Professors Kendi and Silber discussed his intellectual journey and how the current moment has elevated the need for antiracist research.

Over 2,000 people attended this virtual event. If you couldn’t make it, you can read a recap at BU Today.

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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.

Members of the BU faculty present a lecture in his name each year, with the generous support of Alex H. MacDonald (CAS’72) and his wife, Dr. Maureen A. Strafford (MED’76).

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 across colleges, and are of interest to faculty, students, and alumni.

2021 Silas Peirce Lecture

Biased–Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice that Shapes What We See, Think, and Do with Professor Jennifer Eberhardt, Ph.D. (Stanford University)

• Watch recorded lecture (available through March 31)

This year’s lecture featured an illuminating exploration of unconscious bias with one of the leading authorities in the field, Jennifer Eberhardt. Arts & Sciences Dean Stan Sclaroff introduced Professor Eberhardt, and Jessica Simes, assistant professor of sociology, moderated the discussion.

Professor Eberhardt’s research focuses on race and inequality. Through interdisciplinary collaborations and a wide-ranging array of methods—from laboratory studies to novel field experiments—Eberhardt has revealed the startling, and often dispiriting, extent to which racial imagery and judgments shape actions and outcomes in our criminal justice system, and in our neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces. She not only highlights the negative impact that racial bias can have on us in these settings—she provides clear direction on what we can do about it. Racial bias is a problem that we all have a role to play in addressing.
About the presenter: Jennifer Eberhardt

A social psychologist at Stanford University, Jennifer Eberhardt is the author of Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice that Shapes What We See, Think, and Do (Viking, 2019). After receiving a Ph.D. from Harvard University and teaching at Yale University, she joined the Stanford faculty in 1998. She is currently a professor of psychology, the Morris M. Doyle Centennial Professor of Public Policy, and a faculty director of Stanford SPARQ, a university initiative to use social psychological research to address pressing social problems. She has been named a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellow, included in Foreign Policy’s 100 Leading Global Thinkers, and elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences.

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This special event is made possible by the Silas Peirce Fund, which was established by the heirs of Silas Peirce, treasurer of Boston University (1911-1922) and University Trustee (1899-1922), with the intention of providing for special lectures at the College of Liberal Arts. This lecture series was reintroduced at Boston University in 2014 as one of the signature events of the academic calendar.

Past Lectures

• 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”

The annual Gerald and Deanne Gitner Family College of Arts & Sciences Lecture is designed to highlight a 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.

2021 Gitner Family Lecture

Further info TBD

Past Lectures

• 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.