July 13-14:
SUSAN EISENHOWER
The Second Cold War: Was it avoidable? What will it mean?
July 6-7:
CONGRESSMAN JAMIE RASKIN
Democracy, Gun Violence and the American Social Contract: Defending the Constitution against Insurrectionism and Authoritarianism
July 27-28:
RABBI DAVID SAPERSTEIN
Battles over Religious Freedom:
Abortion, LGBTQ Rights, and Public Prayer
For 40 years, Rabbi Saperstein directed the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, representing the Reform Jewish Movement to the U.S. Congress and Administration. Named by Newsweek Magazine as the most influential rabbi in America and by The Washington Post as the “quintessential religious lobbyist on Capitol Hill,” Rabbi Saperstein served during the Obama administration as the U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, the country’s chief diplomat on religious freedom issues. Since leaving government, he has served as Senior Advisor on Policy and Strategy to the Union for Reform Judaism. Also an attorney, he taught seminars on church-state law and on Jewish law for 35 years at Georgetown University Law Center and later at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and Center for Jewish Civilization. He has written extensively in academic books and journals on church-state and religious freedom issues. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, he also serves as a Distinguished Fellow at the PM Glynn Center at the Australian Catholic University.
Congressman Jamie Raskin who proudly represents the 8th Congressional District in Maryland, is one of the leading voices of democracy in the United States today. His life and experiences are powerful and compelling – achieving professional heights and facing great personal challenges. Congressman Raskin served three terms on the House Judiciary Committee and the Committee on House Administration and was the lead impeachment manager in the second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump; he also served on the Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6, 2021 Attack on the Capitol. A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, he was a professor of constitutional law at American University’s Washington College of Law for more than 25 years. He is the author of several books, most recently the best-selling Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth and the Trials of American Democracy. “Unthinkable,” writes The Washington Post, “is a celebration of citizen activists, public servants, survivors, family and hard-won, against-all-odds optimism.”
Lawrence Bacow has served since 2018 as the 29th President of Harvard University. He has devoted his tenure to advancing Harvard’s academic mission and to encouraging interdisciplinary efforts to tackle complex global challenges such as the climate crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. He is a passionate advocate for the free exchange of ideas, for the interests of international students and scholars, and for the promise of a more equitable, diverse, and inclusive University that considers its future in the context of its past. From 2001 to 2011, President Bacow served as president of Tufts University following 24 years on the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he held the Lee and Geraldine Martin Professorship of Environmental Studies and served as Chair of the Faculty (1995-97) and as Chancellor (1998-2001). He received an S.B. in economics from MIT, a J.D. from Harvard Law School, an M.P.P. from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and a Ph.D. in public policy from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.
August 3-4:
DEBORAH BORDA
The Best Seat in the House
Susan Eisenhower is a policy analyst, business consultant, educator, speaker and writer on national security, leadership and related strategic issues. In more than 30 years of traveling to the republics of the former Soviet Union and writing about their transition to independence, post-Cold War disarmament, the future of space science and nuclear energy, she has contributed articles and essays to The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, the Naval Institute’s Proceedings, and the National Academy of Sciences Issues in Science and Technology. She has provided analysis for CNN International, BBC, MSNBC, Fox News, PBS, NPR and the major networks. A member of the National Academy of Sciences Standing Committee on International Security and Arms Control and NASA’s Advisory Council, she traveled to Russia’s top-secret nuclear weapons facility in 2002 and 2003 during her tenure with blue-ribbon commissions for the Department of Energy. Her most recent book, How Ike Led: The Principles Behind Eisenhower’s Biggest Decisions, has received international acclaim.
Beth Macy is a Virginia-based journalist, the author of Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America, and an executive producer and cowriter on Hulu’s Peabody Award-winning Dopesick television series. Her first book, Factory Man, won a J. Anthony Lukas Prize. Dopesick was short-listed for the Carnegie Medal, won the L.A. Times Book Prize for Science and Technology, and was hailed as a “masterwork of narrative nonfiction” by The New York Times. Her latest book, Raising Lazarus: Hope, Justice, and the Future of America’s Overdose Crisis, was published in August of 2022. If Dopesick was a clarion call to boost awareness of the opioid crisis and its origins, Raising Lazarus is about solutions to the epidemic, demonstrated through the actions of harm reductionists treating the addicted as people worthy of care. “Raising Lazarus,” writes The New York Times, “represents Macy, one of the pre-eminent chroniclers of the nation’s opioid epidemic, at her full-bore fearless best.”
2023 SPEAKERS
Deborah Borda has extended the artistic, commercial, and technological boundaries of what an orchestra can be in the 21st century through creative leadership, commitment to innovation, and progressive vision. As President and CEO of the New York Philharmonic, she helped bring to completion the decades-long plans to transform David Geffen Hall, and she spearheaded the appointment of Gustavo Dudamel as Music and Artistic Director beginning in 2026. Under her leadership the Orchestra has introduced a new approach to programming, exploring issues such as women’s rights through the Project 19 program, which garnered a Pulitzer Prize, and connecting with communities through such initiatives as the NY Phil Bandwagon, which presented free outdoor performances across New York City during the pandemic. The first arts executive to join Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership, she has received honorary doctorates from the New England Conservatory, Curtis Institute, and Manhattan School of Music. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and chairs the Avery Fisher Artist Program.
August 10-11:
LAWRENCE BACOW
A Conversation with Larry Bacow
July 20-21
BETH MACY
Hope and Help: America’s Overdose Crisis