Following is a list of lecturers who have participated in McGill’s Beatty Talks as well as their affiliated organization, titles of their presentations, date of the event, and sponsoring group or groups.
2010s
Margaret Rossiter "Women in Science and Medicine: Reflections on a Century" October 13, 2012 Science Outreach, Redpath Museum, McGill Institute for the Study of Canada, History and Classical Studies, Medicine
Catherine Driscoll University of Sydney, Australia "Media, Social Change and Lives of Girls" October 11, 2012 Arts, Institute of Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies
Jeremy Waldron All Souls College, University of Oxford "The Rule of Law and the Measure of Property" October 4, 2012 Arts
Francis Fukuyama Stanford University "The Origins of Political Order" September 23, 2012 Political Science
Andrew Chanen University of Melbourne "Borderline Personality Disorder in Adolescents" May 10, 2012 Royal Victoria Hospital, Psychiatry
Michael Kearney Palliative Care Service Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital "Lessons in Living from the Dying: Whole Person Self-Care" May 8, 2012 Council on Palliative Care
Jacques Neefjes Netherlands Cancer Institute "A Genome-Wide Multidimentional RNAi Screen Reveals Pathways Controlling MHC Class II Antigen Presentation" February 27, 2012 Microbiology and Immunology
Harvey V. Fineberg Institute of Medicine "The Health Populations: Roles and Responsibilities for the 21st Century" February 16-17, 2012 Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health
Michael Holquist Yale University "Why the Humanities Must Lose" October 28, 2011 Law, Arts
Carla Hesse University of California, Berkeley "Speech into Print: Charting the Rise of Female Authorship in the Nineteenth Century" September 16, 2011 English
Ira Byock Palliative Care Service, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Centre, New Hampshire "Lessons in Living from the Dying: The Ethics and Practice of Loving Care" May 4, 2011 Council on Palliative Care
Fazie Hasan Abed Building Bridges across Communities (BRAC) "Education is that which Liberates" and "Organizing People for Power Through the Path of Education" May 2-3, 2011 Education
Chris Impey University of Arizona "How it Ends" March 24, 2011 Anatomy and Cell Biology, Physics, Earth and Planetary Sciences
Nosheen Ali University of California, Berkeley "Of Books and Bombs: Representing the War on Terror" March 11, 2011 Integrated Studies in Education
Rodney Evans Temple University "Excavations: Creating Black Gay History on Film" March 4, 2011 Music
Naomi Oreskes University of California "Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth" February 10, 2011 School of Environment
Jocelyn Downie Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University "Assisted Death" January 13, 2011 Law, McGill Research Group on Health and Law
Michael Watts University of Cambridge "The Gulf War Never Happened: Baudrillard's Interrogation of 'Reality' and Social Theory" October 14, 2010 Integrated Studies in Education
Garrett Stewart Iowa University "Bookwork: Medium to Concept to Object to Art" September 23, 2010 German Studies
Kathleen M. Foley Cornell University "Palliative Care: Shedding Light on Euthanasia" May 4, 2010 Council on Palliative Care John A. McCumber University of California, Los Angeles "Substance and Freedom in Spinoza and Hagel" April 9, 2010 Philosophy
Mona Domosh Dartmouth College "The World was Never Flat: Early Global Encounters and the Messiness of Empire" March 31, 2010 Geography
Lawrence Gostin Georgetown University, Johns Hopkins University "Meeting the Basic Survival Needs of the World's Least Healthy People: Towards a Framework Convention on Global Health" March 25, 2010 McGill Research Group on Health and Law
Nathan Glazer Harvard University "The Role of the Public Intellectual in America: Then and Now" March 22, 2010 Sociology
Richard L. Sherwin New York Law School "Legimatric: From the Digital Neo-Baroque to the Ethical Sublime in the Visualization of Law" February 17, 2010 Institute for the Public Life of Arts and Ideas (IPLAI)
Priya Parmar Brooklyn College, City University of New York (CUNY) "Hip Hop Culture and Youth Empowerment" February 11, 2010 Integrated Studies in Education
Colm Toibin Author "Oscar Wilde in Prison" February 11, 2010 Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies, English
Nathan Cherny National Institute of Health, Washington, D.C. "Caring for the Dying in Situations of War and Conflict: Finding Hope and Building Bridges" April 28, 2009 Council on Palliative Care
Lewis Hyde Poet, Cultural Critic, and Public Intellectual "For Forgetting" April 20, 2009 English, Institute for the Public Life of Arts and Ideas (IPLAI)
Sheila Jasanoff Pforzheimer Harvard University "Life and the Law: Configuring the Human" March 19, 2009 Law, Bioethics, Social Studies in Medicine
Geoffrey A. Landis NASA John Glen Research Centre "Colonizing Venus with Floating Cities" March 5, 2009 Anatomy and Cell Biology, Earth and Planetary Sciences
Joan Wallach "Public Education and Religious Symbols in France" November 24, 2008
Dror Wahrman "God and the Enlightenment: Shifting Ideas About Providence and Causation in Eighteenth- Century Western Europe" October 19, 2008
Santra J. T. M. Evers "Lex Loci Meets Lex Fori: Merging Customary Law and National Land Legislation in Madagascar" October 11, 2008 History
Linda Emanuel "Lessons in Living from the Dying: Understanding and Implementing Preference for Care" May 6, 2008 Council on Palliative Care
Patrick Chamoiseau "Créolité" May 1, 2008 History John Gunderson "Psychoeducation of Borderline Patients and their Families: Overdue and Underutilized" April 24, 2008 Psychiatry
Carl B. Pilcher "The Quest for Habitable Worlds and Life Beyond Earth" March 15, 2008 Anatomy and Cell Biology, Earth and Planetary Sciences
M. Nylan "Beliefs about Seeing: The Moral Technology of Optics in Early China" February 20, 2008 Centre for East Asian Research
Carlos Monsivais "Imagining the Americas" February 13, 2008 Institute for the Study of Canada
John M. Coffin "Persistence & Diversity: New Insights into HIV-Host Relationship" January 23, 2008 Microbiology and Immunology
John Witte "Ethics in the Secular State: New Horizons for Religious Consensus" September 13, 2007
Jocelyn Bell Burnell and Antony Hewish "The Climate for Scientific Breakthrough: Then Versus Now" August 2007
G. Scott Hubbard "Space Exploration: The Moon and Mars - A Vision of the Future" March 15, 2007 Electron Microscopy Centre
Peter McLaren "Critical Pedagogy: An Elegy, Reprise of Revival?" March 9, 2007 Education
Allen Scott "Capitalism and Urbanization in a New Key? The Cognitive-Cultural Dimension" March 9, 2007 Geography
Douglas Kellner University of California, Los Angeles "Hegemony and Resistance in Cyberculture" October 19, 2006 Art History and Communications Studies, Political Science
Gerri Frager Dalhousie University "Lessons in Living from the Dying: Critical Communication in the Care of Children" May 1, 2006 The Council on Palliative Care
Karen Armstrong Religious Scholar and Author "The Great Transformation" April 27, 2006 Religious Studies and the McGill Bookstore
Sandra Harding University of California "Women, Science and Modernity" April 4, 2006 McGill Centre for Research and Teaching on Women, History, Philosophy of Science, Social Studies of Medicine
Robert Kirshner Harvard and American Astronomical Society "Exploding Stars, Dark Energy and the Accelerating Cosmos" March 30, 2006 Physics
William Ruddiman University of Virginia "How Did Humans First Alter Global Climate?" March 8, 2006 Global Environmental and Climate Change Centre
Roger Blandford Stanford University "Black Holes: The End of Time or a New Beginning?" January 5, 2006 Physics Geoffrey Samuel University of Kent "Annual Lecture in Jurisprudence and Public Policy: Is Law Truly a Social Science?" October 26, 2005 Law
Hung Wu University of Chicago "Ruins in Traditional Chinese Art and Visual Culture" October 20, 2005 East Asian Studies, Art History and Communications Studies
Diane Meier Mount Sinai School of Medicine "Lessons in Living from the Dying: Palliative Care in Hospitals" May 3, 2005 Council on Palliative Care
Seth Shostak Centre for SETI Research "When Will We Detect Extraterrestrials?" March 30, 2005 Earth and Planetary Science, Anatomy and Cell Biology, Geography
Lev Manovich University of California, San Diego "Info-Aesthetics: The New Information Aesthetics" February 14, 2005 Art History and Communication Studies, Centre de recherche sur l'intermédialité de l'Université de Montréal, Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal
Peter Fitzpatrick Birkbeck College "Annual Lecture in Jurisprudence and Public Policy: The American Empire and the Rule of Law" January 26, 2005 Law
Mohammed Al-Hadid President, Jordan Red Crescent "Human Relationships as a Crucial Component of Peace Building in the Middle East" November 24, 2004 McGill Middle East Program in Civil Society and Peace Building
John Willinsky Public Knowledge Project, University of British Columbia "Keep the World at Your Fingertips" November 5, 2004 Graduate Students’ Society, Education
Sir James Black "The Greatest Benefit to Mankind" September 23, 2004 Pharmacology and Therapeutics
David Kissane Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York "Lessons in Living from the Dying: Discovering Meaning in Illness and Suffering" May 4, 2004 Council on Palliative Care (Sandra Goldberg Lecture)
Judit Bokser Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico "Latin American Jewish Communities: A Challenging Present" March 31, 2004 Jewish Studies, Political Science
James Kasting, Christopher McKay, and Hojatollah Vali Penn State University, NASA-Ames Research Centre, McGill University "Who on Earth Wants to Go to Mars?" March 16, 2004 Anatomy and Cell Biology, Earth and Planetary Sciences, Geography
John Campbell University of Canterbury "Rutherford, Scientist Supreme: His Years at McGill and the Nobel Prize" December 15, 2003 Chemistry, McGill Sigma-Xi Interdisciplinary Research Society
John T. Cacioppo University of Chicago "Living an Isolated Existence in a Changing Social World" November 21, 2003 Psychology
Henry Giroux Pennsylvania State University "Higher Education, Youth and the Crisis of Intellectuals" November 7, 2003 Education Eric J. Cassell Cornell University "Lessons in Living from the Dying: Suffering and Healing" May 6, 2003 Council on Palliative Care
Mary Zanarini Harvard University "Borderline Personality Disorder: What Patients and Families Need to Know" April 10, 2003 Psychiatry, School of Social Work
Nicholas R. Cozzarelli University of Berkley, California "Exploring DNA Structure and Enzymology Using Single Molecule Methods" April 3, 2003 Biochemistry
Michel Delon Sorbonne "Un Débat Moral au Siècle des Lumières: Peut-On Inventer un Plaisir Nouveau?" March 28, 2003 Langue et littérature françaises, English
Christopher McKay NASA Ames Research Centre "The Quest for Extraterrestrial Life" March 19, 2003 Anatomy and Cell Biology, Earth and Planetary Sciences
Miroslav Radman Laboratoire de Génétique Moléculaire Evolutive et Médicale (France) "Conservation Versus Change: Lesson from Evolution" March 12, 2003 Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Physiology, Sociology, Social Studies in Medicine
Sari Nusseibeh Al Quds University "Peace, Partnerships and Politics in the Middle East: Directions for the Brave" February 5, 2003 McGill Middle East Program in Civil Society and Peace Building, School of Social Work
Douglas Erwin Smithsonian Museum of Natural History "A Cambrian Conundrum: Ecology and Development in the Birth of Animals" January 30, 2003 Redpath Museum
Rodolfo Sacco University of Turin, Italy "Une Baguette et Deux Chimpanzés" November 11, 2002 Centre for Private and Comparative Law
Sir John Daniel UNESCO "Technology is the Answer: What was the Question?" September 23, 2002 Centre for University Teaching and Learning
Greil Marcus University of California, Berkley "The Sound of One City: In Los Angeles, Early 50s, Easy Rawlins Meets the Medallions, Agrees to Disagree" May 20, 2002 Art History and Communication Studies, Canadian Branch of the International Association of Popular Music
Ned Cassem Harvard University "Lessons in Living from the Dying: Celebrating Life Together" May 7, 2002 Council on Palliative Care
Peter Birks University of Oxford "Conscientious Enemies of the Rule of Law" March 14, 2002 Law
John Rummel NASA "Colonizing Mars: Dream of Reality?" February 20, 2002 Earth and Planetary Science, Anatomy and Cell Biology
John D. Caputo Villanova University "There are no Truths, Only Texts" January 31, 2002 Religious Studies, Philosophy Bunker Roy Barefoot College of India "Demystifying Technology" January 25, 2002 McGill Chapter of Engineers without Borders
Luc Ferry Paris "Qu'est Qu'une Vie Bonne?" October 29, 2001 Law, Philosophy (with support from the Consulat général de France à Québec)
Alain Touraine École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (Paris) "In or Out: Social Movements and Globalization" October 18, 2001 Sociology (with support from the Consulat général de France à Québec)
Barbara Epstein Genesis Israel "A Conceptual Model for Understanding Empowerment Practice" March 21, 2001 McGill Middle East Program
Mike Davis "Wild in the Streets: Hot Rod Riots and the Origins of the New Left" March 16, 2001 Art History and Communication Studies
Peter Singer Princeton University "Changing Attitudes to Life and Death" March 8, 2001 Law
Esther Jungreis Hineni "Discovering the Value of Spirituality in Post-Holocaust North America" January 25, 2001 Chabad House and McGill Chaplaincy
Nancee Blum University of Iowa "The Impact of Borderline Personality Disorder on Patients and Families" January 25, 2001 Psychiatry (MUHC), McGill Couple and Family Clinic (School of Social Work) Robert George Princeton University "Kelsen and Acquinas on the 'Natural Law Doctrine'" November 30, 2000 Law
Brendan O'Leary London School of Economics "Irish Peace Accord: Prospects and Problems" November 2, 2000 Research Group in International Security, Political Science
Marjorie Garber Harvard University "Representing the Unrepresentable" September 28, 2000 Art History and Communication Studies
Claude Hagège Collège de France "Multilingualism within the North American Context" September 28, 2000 Quebec Studies Program, Second Language Education, English and French Language Centre, Linguistics, Languages and Translation
David Levy Jarnac Observatory and Parade "More Things in Heaven and Earth: Speculations on Life and the Universe" February 17, 2000 (followed by an astrobiology forum on March 9, 2000 with various speakers) Earth and Planetary Science, Anatomy and Cell Biology, Geography
Catherine E. Snow Harvard University "Ensuring Success in Literacy Acquisition: Why is it so Hard?" February 11, 2000 Psychology
Michael Benedikt University of Texas at Austin "Re-Evaluation" February 1, 2000 Graduate Program in Communications
Mochtar Buchori Jakarta "The Rebuilding of the Indonesian Nation" December 6, 1999 Indonesia Project, Philosophy, Education
Roger Chartier École des hautes études en sciences sociales (Paris) "Readings of Revolutions, the Construction of Authorship between Science and Literature, Molière entre la scène et la plage" September 29-30, 1999 French Language and Literature
Steve Fuller University of Warwick "What Doesn't Kill Us Makes Us Stronger: Why the Science Wars May Turn Out to be a Good Thing, After All" September 21, 1999 Pharmacology and Therapeutics
Catherine Pickstock Emmanuel College, Cambridge "Plato's Liturgical Philosophy: The Good - The City - The Soul" September 20, 21 and 22, 1999 English, Philosophy, Religious Studies, the Montreal Diocesan Theological College
Kathleen M. Foley Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre, New York "Transforming the Culture of Death" May 11, 1999 Council on Palliative Care
William Maixner University of North Carolina "Chronic Pain is Mainly in the Brain" April 8, 1999 Dentistry
Joseph Raz University of Oxford "Disagreements in Politics" March 25, 1999 Law
Art Spiegelman "The Making of MAUS" March 24, 1999 Hillel Jewish Student Centre and McGill Chaplaincy
Hon. Justice Richard Goldstone Constitutional Court of South Africa "Closing Plenary, International Conference on Hate, Genocide and Human Rights: 50 Years Later" January 28, 1999 Law, InterAmicus
Jay Budziszewski University of Texas "Handling Issues of Conscience in the Academy" January 22, 1999 Chaplaincy, Culture and Values in Education
Benjamin Gidron Ben Guiron University, Israel "Peace/Conflict Resolution Organizations in South African, Northern Ireland and Israeli/Palestinian Societies" November 4, 1998 Consortium for Human Rights Advocacy Training
Claude Lorius CNRS, France "Climatic Change: A View from Polar Ice Cores" November 2, 1998 Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences
Jörg Sennheiser Sennheiser Eletronic, Technical University of Hannover "Microphones for the Age of Multimedia" September 22, 1998 Music
Claude Steele Stanford University "A Threat in the Air: How Stereotypes Shape Intellectual Identity and Performance" April 3, 1998 Psychology
Philippe Schmitter Stanford University "The Meaning of Citizenship in a Transnational World" March 19, 1998 Political Science Bruce M. Wright New York "Bangs and Whimpers: Enigmas of the Racial Vex" March 17, 1998 Consortium for Human Rights Advocacy Training, Consortium for Ethnicity and Strategic Social Planning
David Blakenhorn Author of Fatherless America Principal Speaker at Conference "Show us the Father: Paternity in Faith and History" February 6-8, 1998 Newman Centre, Religious Studies, Culture and Values in Education, Chaplaincy, Continuing Formation Services
William Leroy Hylander Duke University "Evolution and Mechanical Loading of the Temporomandibular Joine" November 5-6, 1997
Michael Sandel Harvard University "Democracy's Discontent: Political Identity in a Global Age" October 23, 1997 Law
Patricia Smith Churchland University of California, San Diego "Towards a Neurobiology of Consciousness" September 29, 1997 Anesthesia
J.-C. Yoccoz Université de Paris-Sud "Celestial Mechanics, Statistical Mechanics and Dynamic Systems" May 23, 1997 Mathematics and Statistics
Alan Kay The Walt Disney Company "Is the Best Way to Predict the Future to Invent It? Or Prevent It? April 4, 1997 Computer Science
Judith Jarvis Thomson Massachusetts Institute of Technology "Assisted Suicide" April 1997 Law
V. S. Ramachandran University of California, San Diego "Illusions of Body Image in Neurology" March 21, 1997 Psychology
Jewelle Taylor Gibbs University of California, Berkeley "The Challenge of Multicultural Society: Caribbean Youth in Canada" February 7, 1997 School of Social Work
John Gordon McVie European Organization for the Research and Treatment of Cancer "Genes and Jeans" September 20, 1996 Pharmacology and Oncology
John Shearer Kelley University of Edinburgh "Four Founders of the McGill Medical Foundation: The Edinburgh Connection" September 20, 1996 Pharmacology and Oncology
Keith Hammond Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) "Lecture in Conjunction with FAO's 50th Anniversary" April 4, 1996 Animal Science
Durand Jacobs University of California "Gambling Behaviours in Children and Adolescents" April 1, 1996 Educational and Counselling Psychology
Anthony Smith Magdalen College, University of Oxford “Oxbridge: The Real Reasons Why it Works: Information as a Paradigm of Culture” March 26-27, 1996 Culture and Values in Education Shelley E. Taylor University of California, Los Angeles "Positive Illusions, Mental Health and Survival" March 1996 Psychology
Jean Bethke Elshtain University of Chicago "The King is Dead, Sovereignty and Century's End" February 8, 1996 Law and Political Science
Neil Gilbert University of California, Berkeley "Changing the Philosophy of Welfare" December 7-8, 1995 Social Work
Noam Chomsky Massachusetts Institute of Technology "The New World Order: Old or New?" October 3, 1995 Linguistics
Urie Bronfenbrenner Cornell University "Developmental Psychology in the 21st Century: Comments by a Participant Observer" March 17, 1995 Psychology
Maria Luisa Puga Mexican Novelist "The Culture of an Indocumentado" February 21, 1995 Communications
Horacio Boneo United Nations "Free Elections in Emerging Democracies" January 26, 1995 United Nations Students Association
Laura Nader University of California, Berkeley "Colonizing the Mind: The Anthropology of Everyday Life" November 1993 Anthropology
Paul Ekman University of California "Faces and Emotion" October 1993 Psychology
Anders Ericsson Florida State University "Expert Performance: Its Structure and Acquisition" April 29, 1993 Cognitive Science Centre Funded in memory of Guy Groen
Walter Kintsch University of Toronto "Learning from Texts" April 8, 1993 Cognitive Science Centre Funded in memory of Guy Groen
Ronald Dworkin University of Oxford "Justice in the Distribution of Health Care" March 17, 1993 Law
Gayatri Spivak Columbia University "Derrida and Marx" March 4, 1993 Communications
Clemente Ruiz Duran Universidade Nacional Automade, Mexico "Globalization and the Emergence of Regional Markets" October 6, 1992 Developing Area Studies
Edward Zigler Yale University "Efficacy of Early Childhood Education" May 1, 1992 Educational Psychology Carlos Fuentes Novelist, Mexico "Baroque New World" March 27, 1992 Hispanic Studies, Cummings Series
Norman Daniels Tufts University "Distributive Justice, Access to Health Care and Equal Opportunity" March 13, 1992 Law
Frances Fox Piven City University of New York (CUNY) "Justice and Human Rights" March 2, 1992 McHRAT School of Social Work
Alan Lesgold, James Greeno, Edward Smith and Janet Kolodner University of Pittsburg, Stanford University, University of Michigan, George Institute of Technology "Cognitive Science Colloquium" December 1991-April 1992 Cognitive Science Centre
Gerd Hirzinger German Aerospace Research Establishment "Advances in Sensor-Controlled Robot Systems" November 19, 1991 McGill Research Centre for Intelligent Machines
Kenneth Heilman University of Florida "The Substrates of Long-Term Memory" April 29, 1991 Surgery, Neurology and Neurosurgery
Roy Porter Wellcome Institute "The Development of Psychiatry since the 17th Century" March 11-13, 1991 Medicine
David Sugarman Lancaster University "New Directions in Modern Legal History" March 6, 1991 Law
Jay Weiss Duke University "Immune System Responses to Stress" September 20-21, 1990 Psychology, Hebb Series
R. J. Birgeneau Massachusetts Institute of Technology "High Temperature Superconductivity" March 30, 1990 Physics
S. Muntemba Environmental Liaison Centre International, Nairobi "Third World Perspectives on Sustainable Development" March 25-28, 1990 Anthropology
S. C. Jacobson University of Utah "High Performance Robotics" Spring 1990 McRCIM
Ward Swingle "Swiggle Stype Contemporary Vocal Techniques" March 16-17, 1990 Music
Gerald Postema University of North Carolina "Foundations of Political Community" March 12-16, 1990 Law
Sandra Scarr University of Virginia "Genes and Environment Combine in Development" March 8-9, 1990 Psychology, Hebb Series
Robert Weinberg Massachusetts Institute of Technology "Oncogenes and Antioncogenes: A Clue to Cancer" December 1989 Biochemistry
Robert Shepard Stanford University "How the Mind Reflects the World" September 29, 1989 Psychology, Hebb Series
Sir Michael Atiyah University of Oxford "New Ideas in Geometry and Physics" September 26, 1989 Math and Statistics
Katherine Harris City University of New York (CUNY) "Movement Towards Integration: Communications Research for the Next 25 Years" September 23, 1989 Human Communications Disorders
Allen Newell Carnegie-Mellon University "SOAR: An Integrated Architecture for Intelligence" April 19, 1989 Electrical Engineering
George Fletcher Columbia "Inside Gorbachev's Courts" March 2, 1989 Law
Mort Mishkin National Institute of Mental Health "The Anatomy of Memory" February 24, 1989 Psychology