MVP Fridays
Join us for Friday afternoons on home football weekends for lectures by national leaders, journalists, and writers on questions of meaning, values, and purpose. Each lecture will take place at 4:00 p.m. in the Geddes Hall Andrews Auditorium followed by reception and book signing.
The 2024 Lineup
Here are the dates of our 2024 MVP Fridays series.
Ross Douthat: “Is there hope for America’s future?”
September 6 (Northern Illinois), NOW STARTING AT 5:00 PM
Geddes Hall, Andrews Auditorium
(Add to Google Calendar)
Introduction by Richard W. Garnett, Paul J. Schierl/Fort Howard Corp. Professor of Law
Ross Douthat is an American political analyst, blogger, author and New York Times columnist. He was a senior editor of The Atlantic. He is the author of “The Deep Places: A Memoir of Illness and Discovery,” which was published in October 2021. His other books include “To Change the Church: Pope Francis and the Future of Catholicism,” published in 2018; “Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics” (2012); “Privilege: Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class” (2005); “The Decadent Society” (2020); and, with Reihan Salam, “Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream” (2008). He is the film critic for National Review.
Co-sponsors: Democracy Initiative, Department of Political Science, Gallivan Program in Journalism, Ethics, and Democracy
Javier Zamora: “What can immigrant stories teach us?”
September 20 (Miami of Ohio), 4:00 p.m.
Geddes Hall, Andrews Auditorium
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Introduction by Francisco Robles, Assistant professor, Department of English
Javier Zamora is a Salvadoran poet and activist. In his debut New York Times bestselling memoir, SOLITO (Hogarth, September 2022), Javier retells his nine-week odyssey across Guatemala, Mexico, and eventually through the Sonoran Desert. Zamora was a 2018-2019 Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard University and holds fellowships from CantoMundo, Colgate University (Olive B. O’Connor), MacDowell, Macondo, the National Endowment for the Arts, Poetry Foundation (Ruth Lilly), Stanford University (Stegner), and Yaddo. He is the recipient of a 2017 Lannan Literary Fellowship, the 2017 Narrative Prize, and the 2016 Barnes & Noble Writer for Writers Award for his work in the Undocupoets Campaign.
Co-sponsors: Creative Writing Program, Department of American Studies, Klau Institute for Civil and Human Rights, Institute for Latino Studies
Ilyon Woo: “How can history help us pursue justice?”
September 27 (Louisville), 4:00 p.m.
Geddes Hall, Andrews Auditorium
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Introduction by Sophie White, Joseph and Elizabeth Robbie College Professor, Professor of American Studies
Ilyon Woo is the New York Times best-selling author of Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom, which won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in Biography. She has received support for her research from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Antiquarian Society, among other institutions. Ilyon is also the author of The Great Divorce: A Nineteenth-Century Mother’s Extraordinary Fight Against Her Husband, the Shakers, and Her Times, her writing has appeared in The Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, and The New York Times. Ilyon has traveled the country to speak at bookstores, museums, schools, and book festivals, and she has been featured on such programs as NPR’s Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and CBS Sunday Morning. She holds a BA in the Humanities from Yale College and a PhD in English from Columbia University.
Co-sponsors: Creative Writing Program, Department of History, Department of American Studies, Program of Liberal Studies
Lauren Groff: “What makes a story true?”
October 11 (Stanford), 4:00 p.m.
Geddes Hall, Andrews Auditorium
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Introduction by Katie Bugyis, Rev. John A. O’Brien Associate Professor, Program of Liberal Studies
Lauren Groff is a three-time National Book Award finalist and The New York Times–bestselling author of the novels The Monsters of Templeton, Arcadia, Fates and Furies, Matrix, and The Vaster Wilds, and the celebrated short story collections Delicate Edible Birds and Florida. She has won The Story Prize, the ABA Indies’ Choice Award, France’s Grand Prix de l’Héroïne, and the Joyce Carol Oates Prize, and has been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her work regularly appears in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and elsewhere. Her work has been translated into thirty-six languages. She lives in Gainesville, Florida.
Co-sponsors: Creative Writing Program, Gender Studies Program, Program of Liberal Studies