Commencement Issue 2011
Speakers of 2010 to 2011
Jonathan Safran Foer speaks at an Assembly Series lecture on October 1.
This year, the Assembly Series brought a wide range of speakers to campus. The school year kicked off with a lecture by Arsalan Iftikhar, an international human rights lawyer and author of the well-known blog TheMuslimGuy.com. He was invited to campus to discuss themes in this year’s freshman reading program book, Mohsin Hamid’s “The Reluctant Fundamentalist.”
In September, Jonathan Safran Foer came to campus. Safran Foer, an author most famous for his book “Everything is Illuminated,” read from his newest book, “Eating Animals” and spoke about his past. The event was sponsored by the University Libraries, the Campus Bookstore and Mortar Board honor society.
The fall continued with a series of humanitarian lectures. First, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Nicholas Kristof spoke about the oppression of women worldwide. Later, Mia Farrow, an actress and UNICEF goodwill ambassador was brought to campus.
The spring semester ushered in a new group of speakers, this time including Strobe Talbott, president of the Brookings Institution. Talbott spoke about the polarization of American politics, and its implications on public policy.
Later in the semester, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales came to campus to speak about the relationship between democracy and the Internet. Frank Warren, creator of PostSecret.com, a website where people can submit their secrets on postcards, came to campus.
Toward the end of the year, Assembly Series speakers began to take a look at the role of race in contemporary America. Julian Bond, former chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, came to campus to discuss whether America is actually in a post-racial state. Later, CNN host Soledad O’Brien discussed the role of race on TV. O’Brien is the person behind CNN’s “In America” series.
The semester ended with a talk on the relationship between food and the civil rights movement by Rafia Zafar, Washington University professor of English and African & African-American Studies.