The Stephen A. Levin Family Dean’s Forum is an annual celebration of the arts and sciences.
Initiated in 1984, the Forum presents leading intellectual figures who exemplify the richness of the liberal arts. It also recognizes outstanding undergraduate and graduate students for their academic achievement and intellectual promise. The Levin Family Dean’s Forum is made possible by a generous gift from Stephen A. Levin, C’67, in honor of his son Eric T. Levin, C’92.
Penn Arts & Sciences is proud to welcome Nate Silver to the 2025 Stephen A. Levin Family Dean's Forum!
Save-the-Date:
Tuesday, April 8 - 4:30 p.m.
Harrison Auditorium, Penn Museum
Check back in March for additional details and information on when registration will open.
Past Dean’s Forum Talks:
2024
A Conversation with Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood, poet and author, in conversation with Emily Wilson, College for Women Class of 1963 Term Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Classical Studies
2023
Poetry, Prose, and Reckoning with History
Clint Smith, author and poet, in conversation with Mia Bay, Roy F. and Jeannette P. Nichols Chair in American History
2022
Crazy Determined Asians: Jon M. Chu and the Power of Representation
Jon M. Chu, director of the worldwide phenomenon Crazy Rich Asians, in conversation with David L. Eng, Richard L. Fisher Professor of English and Asian American Studies
2021
Range vs. Grit
featuring David Epstein, bestselling author and expert on the science of high performance, in conversation with Angela Duckworth, Rosa Lee and Egbert Professor and bestselling author
2019
Art and Politics, from Graphic to Cinema
a conversation with Marjane Satrapi, bestselling artist/illustrator, filmmaker, and author
2018
American Exceptionalism: What Divides Americans from the World and from Each Other?
by Mugambi Jouet, Boulton Fellow, McGill Faculty of Law
2017
Fear Inc.: Confronting Islamophobia in America
by Reza Aslan, internationally renowned writer, commentator, professor, producer, and scholar of religions
2016
How Hollywood Is Spotlighting Social Change
a conversation with Josh Singer, Spotlight’s Oscar-winning producer and screenwriter; Neal Huff, the actor who played survivor Phil Saviano; Marci A. Hamilton, PRRUC Senior Fellow: Steven Berkowitz, Associate Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, Perelman School of Medicine: and Peter Decherney, Professor of English and Cinema Studies, Penn Arts and Sciences
2015
The Challenge of the 21st Century: Setting the Real Bottom Line in the Anthropocene
by David Suzuki, scientist, environmental activist, and award-winning broadcaster
2014
Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives
by James Fowler, a professor of medical genetics and political science at the University of California, San Diego
2013
George Washington: A Life
by Ron Chernow, Pulitzer Prize winning author
2012
Justice and the Contemporary World
by Amartya Sen, Thomas W. Lamont University Professor and Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard University
2011
Intuition: Marvels and Flaws
by Daniel Kahneman, world-renowned commentator on the economics of human behavior and Nobel Prize winner
2010
The Politics of Disgust
by Martha Nussbaum, The Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago
2009
Genetics and Genealogy
by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University
2008
The Stuff of Thought
by Dr. Steven Pinker, the Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard
2007
AIDS in 2007: Building a Health Care Movement
by Dr. Paul Farmer, Maude and Lillian Presley Professor of Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Co-Founder, Partners in Health
2006
On Bulls**t
by Harry G. Frankfurt, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Princeton University, author of The Reasons of Love and On Bullshit
2005
The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time and the Texture of Reality
by Brian Greene physicist, string theorist, author of The Elegant Universe
2004
Qualities of Leadership
by David McCullough, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and host of Smithsonian World and The American Experience
2003
Sequencing the Human Genome: The Gateway to a New Era in Science and Medicine
by J. Craig Venter, Founder of the Institute for Genome Research
2002
The Third Millennium and the Spirit of the Age
by Tom Wolfe, bestselling author of The Bonfire of the Vanities and I Am Charlotte Simmons
2000
Gertrude and Claudius
by John Updike, world-renowned novelist
1999
The Woman Warrior
by Maxine Hong Kingston, author of the 1998-99 Penn Reading Project text, The Woman Warrior
1998
Public Support for the Humanities
by Garry Wills, author of the 1997-98 Penn Reading Project text, Lincoln at Gettysburg, and recipient of the 1992 Pulitzer Prize.
1997
Knowing About Knowing About the Brain
by Floyd E. Bloom, M.D., Professor Emeritus, Department of Molecular and Integrative Neurosciences, Scripps Research Institute and former editor-in-chief of Science
1996
The After-Life of Plays
by Jonathan Miller, opera director, physician, medical historian
Other Dean's Forum Speakers:
Donald C. Johanson
Arthur Schlesinger
Philip Roth
Toni Morrison
Yevgeny Yevtushenko
Governors Dupont and Baliles
Gerald Edelman
Baruch Blumberg
James Watson
Susan Sontag
Arthur Miller