Past lectures - Hatfield Lecture Series

Link: Watch recorded lecture ⟩
Speaker: Jon Meacham
Lecture date: September 22nd, 2026
Time: 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Title: American Struggle: Democracy, Dissent, and the Pursuit of a More Perfect Union: An Anthology

Pulitzer Prize–winning presidential historian Jon Meacham is a skilled orator with a depth of knowledge about politics, religion, and current affairs. A highly sought-after commentator, he has the unique ability to bring history to life and offer historical context to current events and issues affecting our daily lives.

In American Struggle, Meacham unites centuries of essential American voices to understand our national debates and divisions from 1619 to the present, with his signature commentary on the consequential speeches, letters, and essays that led us to this moment.

Past lecture series

Fall 2025 - Spring 2026

Speaker: Rick Atkinson
Date: May 12th, 2026
Time: 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Title: Fate of the Day: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777–1780 (Revolution Trilogy, 2)

Speaker: Megan Kate Nelson
Date: April 14th, 2026
Time: 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Title: The Westerners: Myth-Making and Belonging on the American Frontier

Speaker: Michael Luo
Date: March 10th, 2026
Time: 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Title: Strangers in the Land: Exclusion, Belonging, and the Epic Story of the Chinese in America

Speaker: Keisha Blain
Date: February 17th, 2026
Time: 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Title: Without Fear: Black Women and the Making of Human Rights

Speaker: Doris Kearns Goodwin
Date: September 9th, 2025
Time: 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Title: An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s

Fall 2024 - Spring 2025

Speaker: Hampton Sides
Date: May 13th, 2025
Time: 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Title: The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook

Speaker: Steve Inskeep
Date: April 8th, 2025
Time: 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Title: Differ We Must: How Lincoln Succeeded in a Divided America

Speaker: Lindsay Chervinsky
Date: March 4th, 2025
Time: 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Title: Making the Presidency: John Adams and the Precedents that Forged the Republic

Speaker: Nikole Hannah-Jones
Date: February 4th, 2025
Time: 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Title: The 1619 Project

Speaker: Heather Cox Richardson
Date: September 17th, 2024
Time: 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Title: Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America

Fall 2023 - Spring 2024

Speaker: H.W. Brands
Date: May 7th, 2024
Time: 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Title: Founding Partisans: Hamilton, Madison, Jefferson, Adams and the Brawling Birth of American Politics

Speaker: Ned Blackhawk
Date: April 2nd, 2024
Time: 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Title: The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History

Speaker: Liz Cheney
Date: March 5th, 2024
Time: 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Title: Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning

Speaker: Kelly Lytle Hernández
Date: February 6th, 2024
Time: 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Title: Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands

Speaker: Jonathan Eig
Date: October 17th, 2023
Time: 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Title

Fall 2022 - Spring 2023

Speaker: Peniel E. Joseph
Date: May 23rd, 2023
Time: 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Title: The Third Reconstruction: America’s Struggle for Racial Justice in the Twenty-First Century

Speaker: Douglas Brinkley
Date: April 18th, 2023
Time: 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Title: Silent Spring Revolution: John F. Kennedy, Rachel Carson, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and the Great Environmental Awakening

Speaker: Mae Ngai
Date: March 28th, 2023
Time: 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Title: The Chinese Question: The Gold Rushes and Global Politics

Speaker: Nina Totenberg
Date: February 2nd, 2023
Time: 7:30 pm - 8:30 pm
Title: Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships

Speaker: Doris Kearns Goodwin
Date: October 18th, 2022
Time: 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Title: The Voting Rights Act of 1965 and President Lyndon B. Johnson

Fall 2021 - Spring 2022

Speaker: Annette Gordon-Reed
Date: May 10th, 2022
Time: 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Title: On Juneteenth

Speaker: Heather Cox Richardson
Date: April 12th, 2022
Time: 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Title: How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America

Speaker: Erik Larson
Date: March 1st, 2022
Time: 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Title: The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During The Blitz

Speaker: Fredrik Logevall
Date: February 1st, 2022
Time: 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Title: JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917–1956

Speaker: Yamiche Alcindor
Date: October 25th, 2021
Time: 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Title: Truth in Journalism: Reporting on Politics and Identity in America