We're launching the center with a distinguished lecture series called "New Visions of the American Scholar."

"New Visions of the American Scholar" brings together four public intellectuals who have succeeded in descending from the ivory tower and engaging audiences beyond the walls of the university. We have asked these scholars, each one from a different discipline in the humanities, to reflect on the roles that scholars can play and the contributions they can make to contemporary American democracy.

The series takes up the challenge that Ralph Waldo Emerson posed in his "American Scholar" address. Speaking to Phi Beta Kappa members at Harvard in 1837, Emerson invited his audience to inquire "what light new days and events have thrown on the [scholar's] character and hopes." We have asked our four invited speakers to update Emerson's inquiry, applying it to the "days and events" of our own times. Emerson envisioned an indpendently minded scholar, celebrating the common man and providing ethical direction to the life of an early democratic society. What might be an appropriate vision of the scholar for our own late democratic society? What needs to change in order for this vision to be realized? The series asks speakers and audiences to reflect together on the opportunities, responsibilities and pitfalls facing the contemporary American scholar.