#  Marking 100 years of Norton Lectures 

 





October 03, 2025

 

 

In a panel discussion moderated by Arts and Humanities Dean Sean Kelly, Donald P. and Katherine B. Loker Professor of English Stephanie Burt, Franklin D. and Florence Rosenblatt Professor of the Arts Vijay Iyer, writer Viet Thanh Nguyen, and The New Yorker staff writer Adam Gopnik discussed their relationship to the longstanding lecture series and its impact on arts and humanities fields.

“A healthy democracy depends, yes, on the rule of law and fair elections, but it depends just as much on having a flourishing, pluralistic culture,” said Gopnik. “The idea that you have had lectures on subjects that may seem esoteric, that are open to the public, that’s a simple idea of incredible value. When I look at the Norton Lectures I think about the power and fragility of pluralistic culture, and I think we have to be more committed to it now than we have ever been.”

Each of the panelists wrote a new foreword to a past Norton Lecture released this month by Harvard University Press. Iyer wrote on the 1939-40 lectures of Igor Stravinsky, Burt on the 1989-90 lectures of John Ashbery, Nguyen on the 1967-68 lectures of Jorge Luis Borges, and Gopnik on the 1956-57 lectures of Ben Shahn. Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of English Louis Menand also wrote a forward to the 1992-93 lectures of Umberto Eco.  
  
Read more [here](https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2025/09/marking-100-years-of-norton-lectures/).



 

 

 



 

 

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