Epes Lecture Series

Established in 2012, the Hansford M. Epes Distinguished Lecture Series in the Humanities celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Humanities Program at Davidson College.

The series honors Hansford Epes '61 who served in the program as Professor of German and Humanities for almost five decades before he retired in 2012.

The 2025-2026 Epes lecturer will be Ariel Nereson, Associate Professor of Dance Studies, University at Buffalo - SUNY.  "Living Memorials and Monuments to Feeling:  Reparative Encounters on Campus"

Past Lectures

2024-2025
"Scale of Ownership:  Identity in the Shadow of Property"
Ravit Reichman, Brown University

2022-2023
"To Trip the Black Fantastic:  Flex, Flow and Futurity in Black Expressive Culture"
Jayna Brown, Professor and Chair, Department of Theatre Arts & Performance Studies, Brown University

2021-2022
"Change Your Mind First: College and the Urge to Save the World"
William Deresiewicz

2020-2021
"Into the Dark: Reading Hannah Arendt’s Poems"
Samantha Rose Hill, Bard College & Brooklyn Institute

2019-2020
"Using Theater for Social Change"
Sarah Bellamy, Artistic Director Penumbra Theater Company

2018-2019
"What Does Russia Want"
Julia Ioffe, Journalist

2017-2018
"Permanent Crisis: The Humanities in a Disenchanted Age"
Chad Wellmon, University of Virginia

2016-2017
"Black Music as Beautiful Noise, from Blues to Beyoncé and Kendrick Lamar"
Bill Banfield, Berklee College of Music

2015-2016
"The Uses and Abuses of Romanticism"
Larry Todd, Duke University

2013-2014
"Reading with Hiccups: The Humanities, Climate Change, and You" 
Simon Richter, University of Pennsylvania

2012-2013
"The Truth is Terrible: Nietzsche's Idea of an Aesthetic Justification for Existence"
Brian Leiter, University of Chicago

2011-2012
"The Uses of the Past and the Humanist Tradition"
Carol Quillen, President, Davidson College