2016-17 ESF Plenary Lectures
10/ 6 SCREENING OF “LO AND BEHOLD: REVERIES OF THE CONNECTED WORLD”
In “Lo and Behold”, the Oscar-nominated director Werner Herzog chronicles the virtual world from its origins to its outermost reaches, exploring the digital landscape with the same curiosity and imagination he previously trained on earthly destinations as disparate as the Amazon, the Sahara, the South Pole and the Australian outback. Herzog leads viewers on a journey through a series of provocative conversations that reveal the ways in which the online world has transformed how virtually everything in the real world works - from business to education, space travel to healthcare, and the very heart of how we conduct our personal relationships.
10/7: Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog was born in Munich on September 5, 1942. He grew up in a remote mountain village in Bavaria and studied History and German Literature in Munich and Pittsburgh. He made his first film in 1961 at the age of 19. Since then he has produced, written, and directed more than sixty feature- and documentary films, such as Aguirre der Zorn Gottes (AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD, 1972), Nosferatu Phantom der Nacht (NOSFERATU, 1978), FITZCARRALDO (1982), Lektionen in Finsternis (LESSONS OF DARKNESS, 1992), LITTLE DIETER NEEDS TO FLY (1997), Mein liebster Feind (MY BEST FIEND, 1999), INVINCIBLE (2000), GRIZZLY MAN (2005), ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD (2007), Die Höhle der vergessenen Träume (CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS, 2010). Werner Herzog has published more than a dozen books of prose, and directed as many operas. Werner Herzog lives in Munich and Los Angeles.
10/14 GERHARD CASPER, HOW I ENDED UP AT STANFORD
PRESIDENT EMERITUS, STANFORD UNIVERSITY
Gerhard Casper is President Emeritus of Stanford University and a Senior Fellow at both the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI Stanford) and the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR). He is also the Peter and Helen Bing Professor, Emeritus, Professor of Law, Emeritus, and Professor of Political Science (by courtesy), Emeritus. From July 2015 to July 2016, he served as President (ad interim) of the American Academy in Berlin. Mr. Casper has written and taught primarily in the fields of constitutional law, constitutional history, comparative law, and jurisprudence. From 1977 to 1990, he was an editor of The Supreme Court Review. About the Stanford presidency, he wrote Cares of the University (Stanford, CA, 1997). His book, The Winds of Freedom: Addressing Challenges to the University, was published by Yale University Press in February 2014.
10/21 Stanford Presidential Inauguration
10/28 Quentin Skinner
BARBER BEAUMONT PROFESSOR OF THE HUMANITIES, QUEEN MARY, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON
Professor Skinner’s research centers on early-modern Europe, and one of his principal interests lies in the Italian Renaissance. He has published books on Machiavelli, on early Renaissance political painting, on ideals of civic virtue, and has edited Machiavelli’s The Prince. The other main focus of his research is on seventeenth century England. He has written extensively on the relations between rhetoric and philosophy, and has just completed a book on Shakespeare and forensic eloquence. He has also published three books on the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes. His best-known work, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, attempts to span the whole early-modern period.
11/4 Caroline Hoxby, USING ECONOMICS TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS ABOUT EDUCATION
SCOTT AND DONYA BOMMER PROFESSOR IN THE SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES AND SCIENCES
Caroline M Hoxby is the Scott and Donya Bommer Professor of Economics at Stanford University. Hoxby is also the Director of the Economics of Education Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research. She is a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution and the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. A public and labor economist, she is one of the world's leading scholars of the economics of education. Hoxby is well known for her research on school choice, school finance, the market for college education, peer effects, university finance and financial aid. Her current projects include work on how how education affects economic growth; globalization in higher education; and ideal financing for schools. Hoxby is the recipient of many honors including Global Leader of Tomorrow (World Economic Forum) and Sloan, Olin, Mellon, and Ford fellowships. Hoxby has served as a presidential appointee to the National Board of Education Sciences. She has a Ph.D. from MIT, studied at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, and obtained her BA from Harvard University.
11/11 Robert Harrison
ROSINA PIEROTTI PROFESSOR IN ITALIAN LITERATURE
Robert Harrison has written five books on a diverse array of topics, ranging from Italian lyric poetry to man and his relationship with the environment. He received his doctorate in romance studies from Cornell University in 1984, with a dissertation on Dante's Vita Nuova. In 1985 he accepted a visiting assistant professorship in the Department of French and Italian at Stanford. In 1986 he joined the faculty as an assistant professor. He was granted tenure in 1992 and was promoted to full professor in 1995. In 1997 Stanford offered him the Rosina Pierotti Chair. In 2002, he was named chair of the Department of French and Italian. In 2007, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
12/2 Srinija Srinivasan
Srinija Srinivasan, co-founder of Loove, a music startup in Brooklyn, N.Y., dedicated to creating and promoting a new model for production, presentation and equitable distribution, was recently elected to the Stanford University Board of Trustees. Srinivasan joined Yahoo in 1995 as the Internet company's fifth employee. She stepped down as the company's vice president and editor-in-chief in 2010. At Yahoo, she led a range of editorial and policy functions globally, including the organization and evolution of the Yahoo Directory. She oversaw network editorial standards and original content development, guided the company’s corporate responsibility arm and directed policy issues, including privacy and data use, advertising standards, youth safety, community guidelines and accessibility. Srinivasan, who earned a bachelor's degree in symbolic systems at Stanford in 1993, has been an active university volunteer. She has served on reunion committees and as a member of the steering committee of “Think Again,” a 12-city national tour sponsored by Stanford's Campaign for Undergraduate Education (2000-2005) and the Stanford Alumni Association. She also served on the New York Committee for Stanford Arts.