Throughout the summer, Great Books Summer Program welcomes special guests, authors and educators to campus to join our discussion. This series is a major feature of the program and brings fascinating and sometimes well-known visitors to engage with our young people.

2009 Guest Speakers include:

Dr. Joseph J. Ellis Nationally recognized scholar of American history. The author of seven books, including the National Book Award-winning American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation. He is the Ford Foundation Professor of History at Mount Holyoke College.  Dr. Debby Applegate The winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for her biography of Henry Ward Beecher, The Most Famous Man in America. Her writing has won her numerous prizes and has appeared in publications from the Journal of American History to The New York Times. She has been a Sterling Fellow at Yale University and has taught at both Yale and Wesleyan Universities.  Harold Augenbraum Harold Augenbraum is Executive Director of the National Book Foundation, presenter of the National Book Awards. He has published six books on Latino literature of the United States. Augenbraum has been awarded ten grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, received a Raven Award from the Mystery Writers of America for distinguished service to the mystery field, and founded the Proust Society of America. For a full profile, click here.  Dr. Josiah Ober Holds the Constantine Mitsotakis Chair at Stanford University. He writes and teaches courses on various topics conjoining Greek history, classical philosophy, and political theory and practice. He is the author of numerous books including Athenian Legacies: Essays on the Politics of Going On Together.  Martin Espada Called "the Latino poet of his generation" and "the Pablo Neruda of North American authors," Martín Espada has published sixteen books in all as a poet, editor, essayist and translator, including two collections of poems last year: Crucifixion in the Plaza de Armas and La Tumba de Buenaventura Roig. The Republic of Poetry, a collection of poems published by Norton in 2006, received the Paterson Award for Sustained Literary Achievement and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Another collection, Imagine the Angels of Bread (Norton, 1996), won an American Book Award and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He has received numerous awards and fellowships and his poems have appeared in the The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, Harper's, The Nation and The Best American Poetry. A former tenant lawyer, Espada is now a professor in the Depart.

Guest Speakers from previous summers included:

Daniel Asa Rose The executive editor of the international literary magazine The Reading Room and a regular book reviewer for The New York Observer and New York Magazine. A 2006 NEA Literary Fellow, he has won an O. Henry Prize and two PEN Fiction Awards.  Bill Roorbach O. Henry Award and Flannery O’Connor Award-winning author whose work has appeared in numerous publications, including the Atlantic, Granta, and the New York Times Magazine. He currently holds the Jenks Chair in Contemporary American Letters at the College of the Holy Cross.  Howard Greene and Dr. Matthew Greene President and Educational Director (respectively) of the nation's leading independent educational consulting company. They are the authors of numerous books, including the Greenes' Guides to Educational Planning Series; and the hosts of the PBS television’s "Ten Steps to College with the Greenes" and "Paying for College with the Greenes."

Eric Burns Eric Burns is an award-winning journalist and the author of five acclaimed books. The recipient of an Emmy Award for media criticism, Burns was the long-time host of Fox News Channel's Fox News Watch. He has also been named by the Washington Journalism Review as one of the best writers in the history of broadcast journalism. His latest book is Virtue, Valor, and Vanity: The Founding Fathers and the Pursuit of Fame.