HarvardSpeak LA: “Dancing with the Devil” – A Conversation with Pulitzer Prize Winning and Bestselling Author Stephen Greenblatt
Join us for a talk by national bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize winner Prof. Stephan Greenblatt. Prof. Greenblatt is Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University. His research focuses on Shakespeare and Renaissance literature. He is interested in the social and historical embeddedness of cultural life and is best known for a critical practice known as new historicism.
Tuesday, October 7, 2025 @ 4:30-6:00pm
Virtual Event via Zoom (details sent after registration)
Click here to register now!
Cost: $0, members; $10, non-members (limited to one ticket per person)
Contact: Neil Morganbesser, nmorganbesser@gmail.com
About our Speaker:
Prof. Greenblatt is the author of twelve books, including The Swerve: How the World Became Modern (for which he won the 2011 National Book Award and 2012 Pulitzer Prize) and Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare (which spent 9 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list). His honors include the 2016 Holberg Prize from the Norwegian Parliament, MLA’s James Russell Lowell Prize (twice), Harvard University’s Cabot Fellowship, the Distinguished Humanist Award from the Mellon Foundation, Yale’s Wilbur Cross Medal, the William Shakespeare Award for Classical Theatre, the Erasmus Institute Prize, two Guggenheim Fellowships and the Distinguished Teaching Award from the University of California, Berkeley. Among his named lecture series are the Adorno Lectures in Frankfurt, the University Lectures at Princeton, and the Clarendon Lectures at Oxford, and he has held visiting professorships at universities in Beijing, Kyoto, London, Paris, Florence, Torino, Trieste, and Bologna, as well as the Renaissance residency at the American Academy in Rome. He was president of the Modern Language Association of America and is a permanent fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin. He has been elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Letters, and the American Philosophical Society.
We are excited to hear from Prof. Greenblatt speak about topics of interest – especially the relation between literature and history – including most notably his newest book, Dark Renaissance: The Dangerous Times and Fatal Genius of Shakespeare's Greatest Rival. The title of Prof. Greenblatt’s talk is “Dancing with the Devil.”
About HarvardSpeak LA:
HarvardSpeak LA is a program designed to bring preeminent Harvard faculty and researchers to discuss current topics of interest with the Harvard Club of Southern California through one-hour webinars, consisting of a presentation followed by Q&A. 2025’s HarvardSpeak LA events have so far included Senior Research Fellow Loretta Mickley on “Wildfires in the Western U.S.,” Astronomy Prof. Avi Loeb on “Evidence of Extraterrestrial Intelligence?” in February, Law School Prof. Randall Kennedy on his forthcoming book, “How We Overcame: Protest, Law, and the Demise of Jim Crow” in March, retired government Prof. Harvey Mansfield in April, Philosophy Prof. Ned Hall on “Creating a Culture of Civic Discourse at Harvard” in May, Prof. Theda Skocpol on “America’s Democracy and Governing Crisis” in June and Prof. Joel Hirschhorn on “How Genes Affect Our Height, Weight, and Other Things We Care About” in August.
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Refund Policy: We do not provide refunds for any of our events.