Our University brings Bucknell to the world and the world to Bucknell, including speakers from all disciplines who help make this connection.

Departments across the University's curriculum regularly host outstanding speakers, including various colloquia in the humanities, society and technology, and social science, as well as other disciplines, that bring nationally and internationally renowned guests to campus to talk with students and the campus community about issues affecting our world.

Bucknell Forum

This national speakers series began in fall 2007 to focus on major issues facing America and the world. Guests have already included beloved newsman Tim Russert, renowned investor Jim Cramer, distinguished presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, Nobel Laureate F. W. de Klerk, environmental activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and award-winning author Niall Ferguson.Through the voices of renowned agents of change, the current Bucknell Forum series, Revolution Redefined, will explore social change and how it has — or has not — evolved over time, as well as how individuals can grow to become global citizens who make meaningful, lasting impacts on society in a variety of ways.

Janet Weis Fellow in Contemporary Letters

The Janet Weis Fellow in Contemporary Letters is an award given biannually to honor and recognize an individual who represents the very highest level of achievement in the craft of writing within the realms of fiction, non-fiction, or biography. The award was established in 2002.Recent recipients have been historian Robert A. Caro, playwright Edward Albee, novelist John Edgar Wideman, biographer David McCullough, and poet Rita Dove.

Spring 2016 Series

The CSREG / GRIOT spring 2016 series, Honoring the Legacy of James Baldwin / African-American Art, Activism & Aesthetics, is rooted in questions about the intersections of identity, race, gender, sexuality, aesthetics, and activism as they affect and inform a wide range of African American artistic and cultural expressions.

The series has two main focal points.  CSREG will be hosting a set of critical conversations by humanistic scholars reflecting on Baldwin's legacy today, specifically his rich artistry that illuminated the complicated intersections of queerness, blackness, identity, and religious rhetoric. The other focal point will be run by the GRIOT Institute and is an extended conversation with leading African-American artists about their creative journeys in light of the contemporary structural realities of the United States, particularly as they concern artistic expression and racism and the intersections of aesthetic, economic, sociological, and psychological inequality.