Robert L. Hess Scholar-in-Residence Program Archives - ��ճԹ�

Race: Experiences, Scholarship, Solidarities

Stephen Garone — Wed, 02 Dec 2026 23:00:00 +0000

How do our experiences of race in the United States intersect? How can we find strength in cross-cultural and cross-racial solidarity? How do we strive for racial justice? Join Robert L. Hess Scholars Russell M. Jeung and Tanya Katerí Hernández in conversation as they draw on their personal and professional journeys to address these questions.

Russell M. Jeung, professor of Asian American studies at San Francisco State University and co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate, was the 2025–26 Robert L. Hess Scholar-in-Residence.

Tanya Katerí Hernández, the Archibald R. Murray Professor of Law at Fordham University School of Law, is the 2026–27 Robert L. Hess Scholar-in-Residence.

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Hess Scholars Paul Ortiz and Barbara Smith to Lecture on “Defending the Humanities”

Richard Pietras — Thu, 16 Nov 2023 15:26:07 +0000

After a successful tenure as ��ճԹ�’s Hess Scholar-in-Residence (HSR) for 2023, celebrated writer and activist Barbara Smith will help welcome 2024’s HSR Paul Ortiz to discuss the importance of the humanities. The event will be held on Thursday, November 30, at 2:30 p.m. in the Woody Tanger Auditorium. It will also be .

Author and Activist Barbara Smith Served as ��ճԹ�’s 2022–23 Hess Scholar-in-Residence

Ortiz is a professor of history at the University of Florida (UF) and will serve as ��ճԹ�’s Robert L. Hess Scholar in Residence for 2024. He was president of the faculty union at UF and has been critical of political attacks on the humanities and higher education.

Ortiz serves as the director of the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program at UF. He is the author of several books, including An African American and Latinx History of the United States (2018) and Emancipation Betrayed: The Hidden History of Black Organizing and White Violence in Florida from Reconstruction to the Bloody Election of 1920 (2005). He is co-editor of People Power: History, Organizing, and Larry Goodwyn’s Democratic Vision in the Twenty-First Century (2021) and Remembering Jim Crow: African Americans Tell ��ճԹ� Life in the Segregated South (2014). Ortiz also has published essays in The American Historical Review, Latino Studies, Cultural Dynamics, The Oral History Review, Kalfou, Florida Historical Quarterly, and many other journals.

In 2013, Ortiz received the César E. Chávez Action and Commitment Award, from the Florida Education Association, AFL-CIO. He is past president of the United Faculty of Florida-UF (FEA-AFL-CIO), the union that represents tenured and nontenure track faculty at UF.

As part of this event, the ��ճԹ� community is invited to enjoy to a selection of writings by Smith and Ortiz.

This event is sponsored by the Ethyle R. Wolfe Institute for the Humanities; the Maria E. Sánchez Center for Latino Studies; the Black, Race, and Ethnic Studies Initiative (BRESI); and the Robert L. Hess Memorial Fund, in cooperation with the Office of the Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences; the Office of the Dean of Visual, Media, and Performing Arts; the departments of Africana Studies; Classics; Communication Arts, Sciences, and Disorders; English; History; Judaic Studies; Modern Languages and Literatures; Philosophy; Political Science; Puerto Rican and Latino Studies; and Sociology; the programs in Caribbean Studies, Urban Sustainability, Studies in Religion, and Women’s and Gender Studies; the Center for the Study of ��ճԹ�; the Immigrant Student Success Office; the ��ճԹ� Chapter of the Professional Staff Congress; the Frederic Ewen Lecture on Civil Liberties and Academic Freedom; and the Freedom to Teach, Freedom to Read, Freedom to Learn Lecture Series at ��ճԹ�.

��ճԹ� the Robert L. Hess Memorial Lecture

In cooperation with the Ethyle R. Wolfe Institute for the Humanities, the Robert L. Hess Memorial Lecture is supported by the Robert L. Hess Fund. It is named for and honors the eighth president of ��ճԹ�.

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Author and Activist Barbara Smith to Lecture at ��ճԹ� on March 16

Communications — Mon, 13 Mar 2023 14:32:57 +0000

In one of her first public appearances since 2020 that will serve as an extraordinary complement to ��ճԹ�’s Women’s History Month celebration, author and activist will discuss the values that have shaped her remarkable life with the extended campus community on March 16 from 5 to 6:30 p.m.

Smith’s lecture, “What I Believe,” will be an intimate exploration into her life as a trailblazer who broke new ground as a Black feminist, lesbian, activist, author, publisher, and independent scholar who inspired generations. She was among the first to define an African American women’s literary tradition and to build Black women’s studies and Black feminism in the United States. She has been politically active in many movements for social justice since the 1960s.

“I am so honored to serve as the Hess Scholar-in-Residence during the 2022–23 academic year,” Smith said. “At a time when some in our nation wish to limit the information and ideas that students can access, I look forward to expansive dialogues with members of ��ճԹ�’s wonderfully diverse community.”

“As a writer, publisher, teacher, and organizer, Barbara Smith is a transformative force for justice. Her work has reshaped the American academy and society. We are honored to host her for a week of events culminating in the Hess Memorial Lecture,” said Gaston Alonso, interim director for the Ethyle R. Wolfe Institute for the Humanities and associate professor of political science at ��ճԹ�.

This lecture event is free and open to the public and serves as the main highlight of the college’s for 2022–23.

The event will also feature President Michelle J. Anderson as well as , distinguished professor of political science, and Professor of English , interim dean, School of Humanities and Social Sciences.

On November 29, Smith was part of a conversation on campus with Theoharis when they discussed selected clips from the documentary , which features Smith and is based on Theoharis’ research and of the same name.

A prolific writer and publisher, Smith has edited three major collections about Black women: Conditions: Five, The Black Women’s Issue (with Lorraine Bethel, 1979); All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women’s Studies (with Gloria T. Hull and Patricia Bell-Scott, 1982); and Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology (1983). She is also the co-author, with Elly Bulkin and Minnie Bruce Pratt, of Yours in Struggle: Three Feminist Perspectives on Anti-Semitism and Racism (1984). Smith is the general editor of The Reader’s Companion to U.S. Women’s History (with Wilma Mankiller, Gwendolyn Mink, Marysa Navarro, and Gloria Steinem, 1998). A collection of her essays, The Truth That Never Hurts: Writings on Race, Gender, and Freedom, was published by Rutgers University Press in 1998. Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around: Forty Years of Movement Building with Barbara Smith, edited by Alethia Jones and Virginia Eubanks with Barbara Smith, was published by SUNY Press in 2014.

The evening will also include mezzo-soprano Lucia Bradford and the Conservatory Singers, ��ճԹ�’s select chamber ensemble, who will perform “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around.” The group will be conducted by Associate Professor/Director of Choral Studies , director of the New York Philharmonic Chorus.

This signature event will be held on Thursday, March 16, from 5 to 6:30 p.m. in the Claire Tow Theater at ��ճԹ�. It will also be livestreamed on the .

Highlights From the Hess Week Calendar, March 13–20

Full calendar and speakers

Barbara Smith—Hess Scholar-in-Residence Library Exhibit: An exhibit located in the main entrance of the ��ճԹ� Library that will highlight the works and legacy of Barbara Smith. Archival material from the Robert L. Hess Collection will also be presented. Curated by Professor and Librarian Helen Georgas.

March 13, 11 a.m.–12:15 p.m.: President Anderson Welcomes 2022–23 Hess Scholar-in-Residence Barbara Smith Woody Tanger Auditorium, ��ճԹ� Library, and on Zoom

March 13, 2:15–3:30 p.m.: “If Black women were free…”: The State of Black Feminism 2023 Woody Tanger Auditorium, ��ճԹ� Library, and on Zoom

March 14, 2:15–3:45 p.m.: “Transforming the U.S. Academy” Woody Tanger Auditorium, ��ճԹ� Library, and livestreamed on the .

March 15, 11 a.m.–12:30 p.m.: “Justice or Just Us?: Defining a Queer Agenda” Woody Tanger Auditorium, ��ճԹ� Library, and livestreamed on the .

March 15, 3:40–4:55 p.m.: “Teaching as a Liberating Practice” Woody Tanger Auditorium, ��ճԹ� Library, and livestreamed on the .

March 16, 11 a.m.–12:30 p.m.: “Working for Liberation and Having a Damn Good Time” Woody Tanger Auditorium, ��ճԹ� Library, and livestreamed on the .

March 20, 6–7:15 p.m.: “Putting Class Back Into Intersectionality” Online via Zoom

��ճԹ� the Robert L. Hess Scholar-in-Residence Program

The Robert L. Hess Scholar-in-Residence Program, established by ��ճԹ�, is supported by the Robert L. Hess Fund. The program serves as a permanent tribute to the scholarly commitment of Robert L. Hess, exemplified during his tenure as president of ��ճԹ�. It represents the ideal of the educated individual—knowledgeable, thoughtful, inquiring, alive to the shared purposes and concerns linking all intellectual pursuits. More particularly, it evokes the scholarly and academic virtues embodied in the curriculum at ��ճԹ�.

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Author and Activist Barbara Smith Serving as ��ճԹ�’s Hess Scholar-in-Residence for 2022-23

Susan Landers — Thu, 17 Nov 2022 11:43:45 +0000

Barbara Smith—who has been politically active in many movements for social justice since the 1960s as an author, activist, and independent scholar—is ��ճԹ�’s Hess Scholar-in-Residence for 2022-23. Smith was among the first to define an African American women’s literary tradition and to build Black women’s studies and Black feminism in the United States.

Jeanne Theoharis

On November 29, from 2:15 p.m. to 3:30 p.m., Smith will be part of a conversation on campus with ��ճԹ�’s Distinguished Professor of Political Science Jeanne Theoharis. The pair will discuss selected clips from the documentary, “,” which features Smith and is also based on Theoharis’ research and book of the same name. Smith and Theoharis will explore Rosa Parks’ life of freedom fighting, how the many myths of Parks and the movement cloud our understandings of social change, the roles and experiences of women in the movement, and the lessons this history provides for the work of organizing and social justice today. After their conversation, there will be a Q&A period for students, staff, and faculty.

The event will be held in the library’s Woody Tanger Auditorium and will also be livestreamed on the Wolfe Institute’s YouTube channel. At the speaker’s request, masks are required for the in-person event. Room 441 in the library will also be open for guests to watch the lecture online.

You can watch the livestream of the event

To stream the documentary for free before the event, ��ճԹ� students, faculty, and staff can email: wolfeinstitute@brooklyn.cuny.edu

More Hess Scholar-in-Residence lectures will be held in March 2023, and a complete schedule of events will be made available soon.

��ճԹ� the Robert L. Hess Scholar-in-Residence Program

��ճԹ� Welcomes Lisa Lowe, Ph.D., as Its 2021–2022 Hess Scholar in Residence

Susan Landers — Fri, 22 Oct 2021 18:00:53 +0000

Professor of American Studies at Yale University will headline discussions on the Asian-American experience, legacies of settler colonialism, slavery, and empire in the contemporary United States.

Lisa Lowe, Ph.D., and Samuel Knight Professor of American Studies at Yale University, and an affiliate faculty in the programs of Ethnicity, Race, and Migration, and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, will serve as ��ճԹ�’s 2021–2022 Hess Scholar-in-Residence.

In a free, online event open to the public, Lowe will present a keynote lecture as part of this series on Oct. 28 at 5 p.m. “The Colonial Present” will consider the legacies of settler colonialism, slavery, and empire in the contemporary United States, and the endurance of anticolonial struggles. Lowe will address the conflicts between given national history and what that account suppresses, and responds to Cedric Robinson’s call for a relationship to history that “resurrects events which have systematically been made to vanish from our intellectual consciousness,” to transform how we understand our political present.

An interdisciplinary scholar whose work is concerned with the study of race, immigration, capitalism, and colonialism, Lowe is the author of Critical Terrains: French and British Orientalisms (Cornell University Press, 1991), Immigrant Acts: On Asian American Cultural Politics (Duke University Press, 1996), and The Intimacies of Four Continents (Duke University Press, 2015), and the co-editor of The Politics of Culture in the Shadow of Capital (Duke University Press, 1997) and New Formations, New Questions: Asian American Studies, a special issue of positions: east asia cultures critique 5:2 (Fall 1997). Lowe’s teaching interests include Asian American studies and critical race and ethnic studies, colonialism and U.S. empire, and cultures of globalization.

Hess Scholar-in-Residence Program events will run from Oct. 25 to 28.

More ��ճԹ� the Robert L. Hess Scholar-in-Residence Program

The purpose of the program is to invite to the campus each year a distinguished individual representative of an academic discipline at the college, with the selection of such scholars being rotated through the disciplines. The distinction of the scholars in residence is based on their accomplishments and stature, not on their affiliation; they may be drawn from the academy, from the professions, or from public life. They must be able to speak to issues of their disciplines as well as significant issues of concern to the entire ��ճԹ� community.

The scholar in residence engages in a variety of activities appropriate to the discipline, whether public lectures, performances, master classes, or guest lectures in undergraduate courses; participates in panels or symposia; and meets informally and socially with students, faculty, alums, and friends of ��ճԹ�.

Previous Robert L. Hess Scholars in Residence

Vartan Gregorian, 1993–94
Ann Douglas, 1995–96
James S. Langer, 1996–97
Daniel Miller, 2000–01
Robin D.G. Kelley, 2001–02
Agnieszka Holland, 2005–06
Marc Shell, 2007–08
Eleanor J. Sterling, 2009–10
Sean Wilentz, 2012–13
Thomas Frank, 2014–15
Rob Nixon, 2015–16
John L. Jackson, Jr., 2016–17
Edwidge Danticat, 2017–18
José David Saldivar, 2018–19
Winona LaDuke, 2019–20

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Hess Scholar in Residence Winona LaDuke Says We Must Take the “Green Path” to Restore Our Environment and Economy

Susan Landers — Fri, 09 Oct 2020 12:02:36 +0000

Looking to indigenous people for guidance is a good start, said the First Nation activist.

“I’m speaking to you from Round Lake, which is the headwaters of the Red River that flows to Hudson Bay. . . I’m in the heart of the Great Lakes territory, the Anishinaabe territory,” said Winona LaDuke, First Nation activist and keynote speaker at the 2020 Hess Scholar in Residence memorial lecture. LaDuke’s talk, titled “Lighting the 8th Fire, Economics for the 7th Generation,” concluded a week of virtual events that included panel discussions and conversations on decolonization in the classroom, social justice, and sustainability, among other topics.

“In our Anishinaabe prophecies, we are told during the time of the seventh fire we will have a choice between two paths. One is well-worn, but it is scorched, and the other is not well-worn, and it is green. It is our choice upon which path to embark.”

LaDuke is the first indigenous scholar to receive the residency. “This event, and this entire week, which is inspired by student activism, is in line with ��ճԹ�’s mission to provide a transformative and distinctive education to all people of New York City,” said Rosamond S. King, director of the Ethyle R. Wolfe Institute for the Humanities, which hosted the program. “It is part of a process to become more thoughtful and more respectful, and to more deeply incorporate indigenous and Native American cultures, philosophies, and peoples into the curriculum, faculty, student body, and staff of ��ճԹ�.”

LaDuke’s work “is critical to our world, our nation, and our campus,” said Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Anne Lopes. “She addresses environmental, economic, and racial justice issues through the lens of indigenous studies and deep advocacy.”

LaDuke, who lives and works on the White Earth Reservation in northern Minnesota, explained during the Zoom event that the price tag for taking from the land and not giving back, and not being reverent of the earth and its creatures, is the havoc that is being wreaked today—citing the effects of extreme weather and the destruction of massive amounts of America’s western woodlands and ecosystems by wildfires.

LaDuke believes that the next economy must arise from what she calls “The Sitting Bull Plan/8th Fire,” which includes a return to biodiversity (“Where there are indigenous people there is still biodiversity. Eighty percent of the world’s biodiversity is in the territories of indigenous peoples.”) She also stated that America must localize its agriculture and find innovative ways to grow food in urban areas, replace its aging energy infrastructure with more energy-efficient modes of transportation (e.g., electrify the rail system and power it from wind energy sourced from tribal lands), and shake off historical and ecological amnesia to care for and defend our environment. By doing this, we can go forward on the green path.

“America was great when there were 8,000 varieties of corn and when you could drink the water from every stream and river,” said LaDuke. “Where I live is still the place where the wild things are. Wild rice is one of our most sacred foods. For 200 years, our people have fought to protect our rice from encroachment, from dam and pipeline projects. I know we can make change, and believe that we can put our good hearts and minds together to transform.”

In cooperation with the Ethyle R. Wolfe Institute for the Humanities, the Robert L. Hess Memorial Lecture, supported by the Robert L. Hess Fund, was part of the 2019–2020 Scholar-in-Residence Program named for and in honor of the eighth president of ��ճԹ�, whose commitment to scholarship and “the educated individual—knowledgeable, thoughtful, inquiring, alive to the shared purposes and concerns lining all intellectual pursuits,” marked his tenure.

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Faculty and Staff Reading Group Spring 2020 Schedule

Susan Landers — Thu, 13 Feb 2020 15:05:59 +0000

All faculty and staff are invited to selected readings of Winona LaDuke’s Recovering the Sacred: The Power of Naming and Claiming (South End Press, 2005), performed by ��ճԹ� Professor Conor Tomás Reed. LaDuke is the Hess Scholar in Residence.

The reading group will meet from 12:30 to 2 p.m. in 283 Library on the following Thursdays: February 27, March 19, and April 23.

Members can pick up a free copy of Recovering the Sacred from the Wolfe offices in 2231 Boylan Hall. Participants are encouraged to attend the Hess events during March 16–20 for the opportunity to discuss LaDuke’s work with the author herself.

RSVP at wolfeinstitute@brooklyn.cuny.edu.

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‘The World Is Before You, and You Need Not Take It or Leave It as You Came In,’ Says Hess Scholar in Residence Edwidge Danticat

Susan Landers — Tue, 03 Apr 2018 21:11:30 +0000

“What I share with you is part of an ongoing exploration for me . . . about certain issues and struggles that connect different people in the African diaspora, both in pain and jubilee,” said Haitian-American author and activist Edwidge Danticat, who delivered the 13th Robert L. Hess Memorial Lecture, “A Right to Be Here: Race, Immigration, and My Third Culture Kids,” at the Woody Tanger Auditorium in the ��ճԹ� Library on March 28.

Danticat emigrated from Haiti with her family at the age of 12 and grew up in ��ճԹ�. She joked that her father wanted her to be a nurse. But it was clear from the age of 14, when she published her first work, “A Haitian-American Christmas: Kremace and Creole Theater,” in the New York City teen paper New Youth Connections, where her path lay: at the intersection of art, politics, and activism, particularly for the civil rights of Haitians in Haiti and the diaspora. Her debut novel Breath, Eyes, Memory (1994) became an Oprah’s Book Club selection, and in 1995, at the age of 26, Danticat became the youngest National Book Award nominee ever for her novel Krik? Krak! Her work of historical fiction, The Farming of Bones, earned her an American Book Award, and in 2007 the author would win the National Book Critics Award for her family memoir Brother, I’m Dying.

Danticat spoke of witnessing state abuses in both Haiti and New York City in the 1980s, citing the 1997 beating and assault of Haitian immigrant Abner Louima by the NYPD, and the 2000 death of unarmed Haitian-American Patrick Dorismond by NYPD gunfire .

“We carried signs and chanted ‘No justice, no peace. Whose streets? Our streets,’ even while fearing that this would never be true. The streets, we worried, were never ours to begin with, just as they hadn’t been in the homelands we were fleeing to obtain safety here.”

Invoking the names Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Walter Scott, Sandra Bland, Stephon Clark—all unarmed people of color who died at or in the hands of law enforcement, Danticat drew comparisons between African Americans living in the United States who are treated unequally under the law and political refugees of Haitian descent who were ejected from the Dominican Republic, many after living there decades, because they were no longer considered citizens. Particularly vulnerable, she pointed out, are “third culture” children—children who are raised outside of their parents’ native culture for a significant part of their developing years.

“Parents are often too nervous to broach subjects like this with their children. These among other difficult subjects like love, sex, death, race,” Danticat said. “Sometimes we are forced to have these kinds of conversations early, too early. A broken heart might lead to questions we’d rather not answer as might an inappropriate gesture, the death of a loved one, or a murder of a stranger.”

“I certainly would not like my daughters to grow up terrified of the country and the world they live in,” she said of Mira, 13 and Laila, 9. “But is it not irresponsible of me to at least not alert them to the potential life altering or even life-ending horrors they might face as young people in today’s world [and] as young black women, as the children of immigrants in a large family of immigrants with various types of immigration status?”

In what she calls a never-ending letter to her “third-culture gals,” Danticat tells her daughters, “The world is before you, and you need not take it or leave it as you came in. . . .That we cannot stand by and watch, that we must join each other’s causes, have each other’s backs, form alliances. Practice what in Haiti we call kombit: Today you work my land, tomorrow I work yours. I want them to look back in wonder and amazement and love, because when you study history and the gains people have made against impossible odds, in the Haitian Revolution, or the civil rights movement, and in the dismantling of apartheid, it’s harder for you to give up in despair. And if you feel frozen and overwhelmed, just take one small step at a time.”

Danticat earned a bachelor’s degree in French literature from Barnard and a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from Brown University. A recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 2009, Danticat is the 25th laureate of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature for outstanding literary merit in literature worldwide. She gave the keynote address to ��ճԹ� Master’s graduating class in May 2014, and was given an Honorary Doctor of Letters during the commencement ceremony.

Of her Hess residency Danticat said, “Any time I come to ��ճԹ� in any capacity it’s an honor. I feel like I’ve been a part of the ��ճԹ� family for so many years. My brother and sister-in-law got their degrees here, my nieces went to toddler school here. Brother I’m Dying was a [Common Reading selection], I’ve spoken at commencement, I’ve taken shortcuts through the campus on the way to my brother’s house from the train on Flatbush. It feels more like a homecoming than a visit.”

In cooperation with the Ethyle R. Wolfe Institute for the Humanities and the CUNY Haitian Studies Institute, the Robert L. Hess Memorial Lecture was part of the 2017–2018 Scholar-in-Residence Program named for and in honor of the eighth president of ��ճԹ�, whose commitment to scholarship and “the educated individual—knowledgeable, thoughtful, inquiring, alive to the shared purposes and concerns lining all intellectual pursuits,” marked his tenure.

For the full Robert L. Hess Memorial Lecture delivered by Edwidge Danticat, visit the ��ճԹ� .

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Nobel-Prize Winning Columnist Paul Krugman and Political Analyst Thomas Frank Discuss the Obama Legacy

Susan Landers — Wed, 01 Apr 2015 14:16:15 +0000

Were Barack Obama’s attempts to tackle partisanship wise or did they only further contribute to the current political dysfunction in Washington? Did he do enough to push the economy along or would we be further ahead in the recovery had he pushed a big stimulus package? Is the president inadvertently responsible for the rise of the Tea Party? What about his record on the environment?

Thomas Frank, political analyst, historian, and journalist, and this year’s Robert L. Hess Scholar-in-Residence, and Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times journalist, debated these and other issues for the annual Robert L. Hess lecture, which was dedicated to exploring the legacy of Obama’s presidency. During a nearly two-hour debate that was mostly friendly banter, the two men deliberated the issues that have swirled around the president’s six years in office.

While sharing some views, Frank and Krugman disagreed on the president’s economic policies, the rise of the conservative movement, and what will be the lasting importance of the Affordable Care Act.

Krugman, a liberal, said he was initially worried when the president took office because he felt he was the most right-leaning of all the Democratic candidates and he was unprepared for some of the challenges that faced him, namely the forcefulness of his conservative foes and how to sell his ideas to the American people. Krugman’s concerns waned over time.

“I think Obama has learned a lot,” he said.

For his money, Krugman said he felt Obama’s biggest misstep has been in not pushing harder on measures to save the environment.

“Future historians will see his failure to do anything about climate change as a big one,” he said before adding: “If there are any future historians.”

Krugman is the author of more than 20 books and more than 200 professional journal articles. A professor of economics and international affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, he will join the faculty of the CUNY Graduate Center as a professor in the Ph.D. program in economics this year, and was also named a distinguished scholar at the CUNY Graduate Center’s Luxembourg Income Study Center last year.

Frank, on the other hand, said he started out with high hopes for the president and was quickly disappointed. While he gave Obama credit for ending the Iraq War and for the healthcare law he was able to get enacted, he felt the president naively wasted his time trying to take on partisanship in Washington, and that he should have reacted to the financial crisis that began in 2008 in a more aggressive manner.

“The way you have to judge a president’s legacy is in relation to the challenges of the time,” said Frank, adding that he would have also liked to see Obama tackle inequality in a bigger way. “In my opinion, what the times called for when he came to office was a second New Deal.”

Frank is the author of What’s the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America (Holt Paperbacks, 2005), and most recently, Pity the Billionaire: The Hard-Times Swindle and the Unlikely Comeback of the Right (Metropolitan Books, 2012). A former columnist at Harper’s Magazine, Frank has also contributed to Salon, Le Monde Diplomatique, Rolling Stone, The Guardian, The Nation and The Washington Post.

The Hess lecture series is sponsored by The Wolfe Institute for the Humanities, which sponsors a varied series of lectures, seminars, colloquia, conferences and study groups with the aim of keeping public conversation at ��ճԹ� in touch with advances in the humanities and social sciences. The lecture series is named after Robert L. Hess, a former president of the college.

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Robert L. Hess Scholar-in-Residence Program Archives - ���ճԹ�

Race: Experiences, Scholarship, Solidarities

Hess Scholars Paul Ortiz and Barbara Smith to Lecture on “Defending the Humanities”

Author and Activist Barbara Smith to Lecture at ���ճԹ� on March 16

Author and Activist Barbara Smith Serving as ���ճԹ�’s Hess Scholar-in-Residence for 2022-23

���ճԹ� the Robert L. Hess Scholar-in-Residence Program

Sponsors

���ճԹ� Welcomes Lisa Lowe, Ph.D., as Its 2021–2022 Hess Scholar in Residence

More ���ճԹ� the Robert L. Hess Scholar-in-Residence Program