The Witte Lecture Series: Celebrating 30 Years

Rutger Bregman

Humankind: A Hopeful History and Moral Ambition
Friday, January 29, 7:00pm
Saturday, January 30, 2:00pm 

Rutger Bregman is a Dutch historian, bestselling author, and co-founder of The School for Moral Ambition. He made his international breakthrough with his bestseller Utopia for Realists (36 languages), followed by Humankind (46 languages) and Moral Ambition (32 languages and counting). His work has sold around 2.5 million copies worldwide. The Guardian described him as ‘the Dutch wunderkind of new ideas’, and TED named him ‘one of Europe’s most prominent young thinkers’. Bregman studied History at Utrecht University and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He began his career at the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant before moving to the independent journalism platform De Correspondent, where he wrote for ten years. In 2024, Rutger co-founded The School for Moral Ambition, a non-profit organization inspired by his latest book. The initiative helps people to take the step toward an impactful career.

Sy Montgomery

Wild Wonders: Sy Montgomery’s Journey Through the Animal Kingdom
Friday, February 19, 7:00pm
Saturday, February 20, 2:00pm

To research her books, films, and articles, Sy Montgomery has encountered an array of thrilling experiences: she has been pursued by an irate silverback gorilla in Zaire and bitten by a vampire bat in Costa Rica. She has worked in a pit teeming with 18,000 snakes in Manitoba and handled a wild tarantula in French Guiana. Sy’s 38 books for both adults and children have garnered many honors. The Soul of an Octopus was a 2015 Finalist for the National Book Awards. The Good Good Pig, her memoir of life with her pig, Christopher Hogwood, is an international bestseller. Her work with the man-eating tigers, the subject of her book Spell of The Tiger, was made into in a National Geographic television documentary she scripted and narrated. Also, for National Geographic TV she developed and scripted Mother Bear Man, about her friend, Ben Kilham, who raises and releases orphaned bear cubs, which won a Chris award.

Sy is also the author of the just published Secrets of Octopus from National Geographic, the companion volume to the 3-part TV series of the same name. And she wrote the cover story for the May issue of National Geographic Magazine–which is an excerpt from her new book.

Ronan Farrow

Surveilled and AI
Friday, March 19, 7:00pm
Saturday, March 20, 2:00pm

Ronan Farrow is a contributing writer to The New Yorker, where his investigative reporting has won the Pulitzer Prize for public service, the National Magazine Award, and the George Polk Award, among other honors. His stories for The New Yorker exposed the first sexual-assault allegations against the movie producer Harvey Weinstein and the first misconduct allegations against CBS executives, including then C.E.O. Leslie Moonves. Farrow’s book, Catch and Kill is a New York Times bestseller with a companion Peabody Award-winning podcast which has topped the Apple Podcast charts. Farrow’s latest documentary, Surveilled, was an instant hit.

Before his career in journalism, Farrow served as a State Department official in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He is also the author of the New York Times bestseller War on Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence. Farrow has been named one of TIME Magazine’s “100 Most Influential People” and one of GQ’s “Men of the Year”.

Corby Kummer

Savoring the Future: A Journey into Gastronomy
Friday, April 16, 7:00pm
Saturday, April 17, 2:00pm

Join us for a thought-provoking journey where renowned food writer Corby Kummer delves into the intricate world of gastronomy. In this talk, Kummer will unravel the complex tapestry of culinary arts, culture, and sustainability, offering fresh perspectives on how we perceive, consume, and appreciate food. Get ready to savor insights that will transform your understanding of the food we eat and the world around us.

Corby Kummer is executive director of the Food and Society policy program at the Aspen Institute, editor in chief of Ideas: The Magazine of the Aspen Institute, a senior editor of the Atlantic, and senior lecturer at the Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition Science. He is the author of The Joy of Coffee and The Pleasures of Slow Food, the first book in English on the Slow Food movement, and has been restaurant critic of the New York, Boston, and Atlanta magazines and food and food policy columnist for the New Republic. Every week he is a featured commentator on food and food policy on WGBH’s Boston Public Radio. He has received six James Beard Journalism Awards.