Will Judy Lecturers' Biographies

Henry Margenau, 1959-60

(1901-1997) Henry Margenau was a physicist-philosopher and an expert in spectroscopy, microwave theory, and nuclear energy and the philosophy of science. He was part of the Yale University faculty for 41 years before retiring in 1969. His theories of spectral analysis were used during the 1950s to analyze the fireballs created in tests of hydrogen bombs. Margenau's work on microwave theory proved to be helpful during World War II in the development of the technology to transmit and receive radar signals. He was also the author or co-author of several books some of which were Ethics and Science, Quantum Mechanics, Integrated Principles of Modern Thought and The Nature of Physical Reality as well as the editor of numerous professional journals and a consulting editor for the Time-Life science books.

Henry S. Commager, 1960-61

(1902-1998) Henry Commager was an American Historian, defender of the Constitution, and professor who taught at New York University (1929-38), Columbia University, New York City (1938-56), and Amherst (Massachusetts) College (1956-92). He also held a few engagements twice in the 1940s at the University of Cambridge and once in 1952 at the University of Oxford. Commager was an outspoken rival of both McCarthyism and the Vietnam War. He also has an extensive collection of writings, most of which were completed in collaboration with other historians. Several of these include The Growth of the American Republic, The American Mind (1951), The American Character (1970), The Empire of Reason (1977), and Commager on Tocqueville (1993). Commager was a member of the National Academy of Arts and Letters and was awarded in 1972 with its Gold Medal for History.

Will Herberg, 1960-61

(1901-1977) Will Herberg was the only Jewish ex-Marxist to indulge in a full time profession embracing Jewish theology and the study of religion. He was one of the first American intellectuals to suspect that the authors of the Constitution were actually trying to establish a wall between the separation between church and state.

John Ciardi, 1961-62

(1916-1986) John Ciardi was an internationally acclaimed poet and professor. He is the author of approximately 40 books of poetry and criticism, which include many volumes of children's verse as well as many collections of poems for adults that ranged from war verses to love lyrics. Ciardi is perhaps best known for his translation of Dante's Inferno. He taught for many years at Rutgers University and Harvard and served as poetry editor of the magazine Saturday Review from 1956 to 1972. He left the world of academics in 1961 to devote himself fully to literary pursuit. A few of his adult books include Other Skies, From Time to Time, Mid-Century American Poets, and his children's books included The Reason for the Pelican, and Mummy Slept Late and Daddy Fixed Breakfast. Ciardi served as a president of the National Institute of Arts and Letters and was a recipient of numerous awards and honorary degrees including the Prix de Rome, the Harriet Monroe Memorial Award, and an award for excellence in children's poetry from the National Council of Teachers of English.

Stanley Kunitz, 1961-62

(1905- ) Stanley Kunitz is a poet whose early works as an editor were compiled into his first book in 1930, Intellectual Things. After his involvement in the army for two years in World War II, he became a professor and visiting lecturer at several universities. His first collection of works, Selected Poems, 1928-1958, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1959. Following the Pulitzer Prize, he received several awards, which consisted of the Bollingen Prize (1987), the Brandeis Medal of Achievement, the Lenore Marshall Prize, the Walt Whitman Citation of Merit for Poetry, and a National Medal of Art. The Walt Whitman Citation of Merit for Poetry made him the first official New York State Poet. He is also a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Kunitz also received the National Book Award for Passing Through: The Later Poems, New and Selected. His most recent book is Next-to-Last Things: New Poems and Essays. His life work is presented in his book, The Collected Poems (2000).

Ernst Mayr, 1962-63

(1904- ) Ernst Mayr is a German-born American biologist who is known for his work in avian taxonomy, population genetics, and evolution. He has become known as one of the most influential evolutionary biologists of the 20th century. During his travels in New Guinea, he became one of the leaders in the development of the modern synthetic theory of evolution after he discovered through his early studies of the ability of one species to separate or subdivide into daughter species, the process known as speciation. He continued his studies at the Museum of Natural History in New York (1932-1953) as the curator of birds. It was here that he wrote over 100 papers on avian taxonomy. One of these papers was titled Birds of the Southwest Pacific (1945). In 1940, his proposition of a definition of a species led to the discovery of numerous previously unknown species. He was a professor of zoology at Harvard University in 1953, a director of the Museum of Comparative Zoology in 1961, and retired in 1970. A few of his other works include Methods and Principles of Systematic Zoology, Animal Species and Evolution, Evolution and the Diversity of Life, The Growth of Biological Thought, and This is Biology: The Science of the Living World.

Fred Rodell, 1963-64

(1907-1980) Fred Rodell was one of the country's ranking specialists on the United States Constitution and a vigorous civil libertarian. He was a law school professor at Yale for 41 years before retiring in 1974. Rodell believed that the Court should apply the constitution to protect and improve the political, social, and economic rights of American individuals against either legislative or executive interference. He conveyed his ideas in his four books, the first one being Fifty-five Men, and over 200 articles.

Harold Taylor, 1964-65

(1915-1993) Harold Taylor was one of the nation's youngest college presidents, at the age of 30, when he was chosen as the head of Sarah Lawrence College. He was also known as a creative progressive educator and a peace activist. Taylor demonstrated these qualities through serving as chairman of the Peace Research Institute and National Research Council on Peace Strategy. He also coordinated for the Nation the Lenore Marshall/Nation Poetry Prize during the last few years of his life, which was an annual search for the year's best book of poems.

Gerald Holton, 1965-66

Gerald Holton is Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics and Professor of the History of Science, Emeritus, at Harvard University. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Life Honorary Fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences, and Fellow of several Learned Societies in Europe. Holton was the founding editor of the quarterly journal Daedalus, and the founder of Science, Society, & Human Values. He was also on the editorial committee of the Collected Papers of Albert Einstein (Princeton University Press). Holton has received the following honors: Sarton Medal of the History of Science Society, and the selection by the National Endowment for the Humanities as the Jefferson Lecturer. Some of his books include Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought, Einstiend, History, and Other Passions, and Physics, The Human Adventure: From Copernicus to Einstein and Beyond.

Kenneth E. Boulding, 1966-67

(1910-1993) Kenneth Boulding was an economist, philosopher, and poet. He is known for his work on evolutionary and ecological aspects of social theory as well as his work on conflict and peace and for three published volumes of poetry. He was a professor of economics at the University of Michigan during the years of 1949-68. Boulding was also the director of research at the Center for Research on Conflict Resolution, the director of the program on general social and economic dynamics at the Institute of Behavioral Science from 1967-81, research associate and project director of the program on political and economic change in 1981, and a visiting professor at numerous colleges and universities all over the world. He was the author of the following books: Economics of Peace (1945), The Organizational Revolution (1953), Economics as a Science (1970), and Stable Peace (1978).

Moris Carnovsky, 1967-68

(1897-1992) Moris Carnovsky was an American actor who excelled in dialectal character roles. He was commended for his portrayals of thoughtful, troubled men both on stage and on screen. He joined the Theatre Guild's acting company in 1924 and helped form the Group Theatre in 1931, which specialized in dramas. Carnovsky then went to Hollywood after the Group Theatre separated. This is where he made his Oscar winning motion-picture debut as Anatole France in The Life of Emile Zola in 1937. He appeared in other plays such as Uncle Vanya, Saint Joan, The Doctor's Dilemma, Golden Boy (1937), Edge of Darkness (1943), Rhapsody in Blue (1945), and Dead Reckoning (1947). In the early 1950s, Carnovsky was called upon to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee. After refusing to compromise his rights, he was blacklisted, abruptly ending his screen career. However, he was then invited to join the American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, by John Houseman, where he appeared in several other roles including the following: Shylock (The Merchant of Venice), and as Lear (King Lear). He also appeared in two other motion pictures, A View from the Bridge (1962) and The Gambler (1974). Carnovsky was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame in 1979.

John R. Platt, 1968-69

(1918-1992) John Platt was a physicist and biophysicist researching molecular biophysics, the biophysics of vision and perception, and social trends. From 1945-1965 he was a professor at the University of Chicago. He then became a professor of physics and associate director of the Mental Health Research Institute at the University of Michigan in 1965 until his retirement in 1977. Platt's books included The Excitement of Science (1962) and Step to Man (1966).

Dick Gregory, 1969-70

1932- ) Dick Gregory was an African American comedian, civil rights activist, and spokesman for health issues. While serving in the army in the early 1950s, he developed comedy routines for Special Service shows. Gregory's professional career began in 1958 as master of ceremonies in Chicago nightclubs and became nationally known in the 1960s for a comedy that attacked racial prejudice. He appeared in Carnegie Hall in New York City in 1962 and appeared in other concert routines and various TV shows targeting poverty, segregation, and racial discrimination. Gregory ran for mayor of Chicago in 1966 and president of the U. S. in 1968 as a Candidate of the Peace and Freedom Party. In the 1970s, he abandoned comedy to focus on more of his political interests, widening from race relations to include other issues such as violence, world hunger, capital punishment, drug abuse, and poor health care. As a result of these interests, he built the Dick Gregory Health Enterprises, Inc. through which he targeted the lower life expectancy of black Americans due to poor nutrition and drug and alcohol abuse. Gregory's best-selling albums include Dick Gregory in Living Black & White and Dick Gregory, Light Side-Dark Side and two of his books include: Nigger: An Autobiography (1964), and No More Lies: The Myth and the Reality of American History (1971).

Benjamin DeMott, 1970-71

No biography available

Isaac Asimov, 1971-72

(1920-1992) Isaac Asimov was a highly successful and prolific American writer and biochemist. He published more than 400 books on an enormous variety of subjects: science fiction; science fact; mysteries; children's books; books of history; books about poetry, drama, and the Bible; joke books; fact books; and reference books. Asimov became a professor of biochemistry at Boston University in 1949. His first two books, Pebble in the Sky and I Robot, were published in 1950. Some of Asimov's works include the following: Foundation, Foundation and Empire, and Second Foundation (his trilogy of novels, 1951-53), The Stars, like Dust (1951), The Naked Sun (1957), Earth is Room Enough (1957), and what is thought to be the finest science-fiction short story ever written, Nightfall (1941). He also published two volumes of autobiography.

Dwight W. Allen, 1972-73

(1931- ) Dwight Allen is an eminent scholar of Educational Reform at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. He is internationally known for his work with distance education and microteaching. He developed the simplified teaching assessment concept developed in Standard known as the 2+2 model. Allen has several hundred publications, some of which are as follows: Schools for a New Century: A Conservative Approach to Radical School Reform (1992) and American Schools: The $100 Billion Challenge. He is interested in research regarding educational reform, teacher education, curriculum development, international education, and educational leadership. Allen has led countless educational reform projects and consulted with ministries of education, universities, and private sector organizations in more than 70 countries.

Ralph Potter, Jr., 1973-74

No biography available.

Ruth M. Davis, 1974-75

Ruth Davis is the former Director of the Institute for Computer Sciences and Technology at the National Bureau of Standards, former Assistant Secretary of Energy, and former Undersecretary of Defense in charge of Research and Advanced Technology.

Samuel H. Beer, 1975-76

(1911- ) Samuel Beer was a staff member at the Democratic National Committee in Washington, DC during the years of 1935-36. Then in 1936, he became a reporter for the New York Post, and later a writer and researcher at Fortune (1937-1938). His involvement in World War II interrupted his academic career until 1954 when he returned to Harvard to serve as department chair until 1958. Beer has held the Eaton Professor of Science of Government Chair since 1971. He has held memberships in the American Political Science Association, Americans for Democratic Action (chair of Massachusetts chapter, 1955-57, and national chair, 1959-62), and Phi Beta Kappa. Some of his awards include the following: Rhodes Scholar, 1932-35; Fulbright and Guggenheim fellow, 1953-54; Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award, 1966, for British Politics in the Collectivist Age.

Edmund D. Pellegrino, 1976-77

Edmund Pellegrino is Professor Emeritus of Medicine and Medical Ethics, A Senior Research Scholar of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, and adjunct Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown. He has been a department chairman, dean, university president. Pellegrino is also the former Director of the Center for the Advanced Study of Ethics and founder of the Center for Clinical Bioethics at Georgetown University. He has written over 550 published items on subjects in medical science, philosophy, and ethics, the author/co-author of 24 books, and the founding editor of the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy. Pellegrino is a Master of the American College of Physicians, Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. He was a recipient of 46 honorary doctorates and many other honors and awards. He is interested in research subjects such as the history and philosophy of medicine, professional ethics, and the relationships between patients and physicians.

E.A. Vastyan, 1976-77

E.A. Vastyan is University Professor Emeritus who taught at Denison University (1951), Episcopal Theological School (1957), and Medical University of South Carolina (1979). A few of his publications are as follows: Healing and the Wounded Healer; Among Other Things, Art; and Spiritual Aspects of the Care of Cancer Patients.

Bryant Rossiter, 1977-78

Bryant Rossiter is currently president of Viratek and vice president of ICN Pharmaceuticals, a multinational corporation in the health-care field that develops, manufactures, and sells pharmaceuticals and chemical products and services. He was a former director of science and technology development for Eastman Kodak Co.'s research laboratories of Rochester, N.Y. From 1970 to 1984, he served as director of the chemistry division of the Research laboratories of Eastman Kodak. He was in charge of directing over 200 scientists who were responsible for a good deal of Kodak's pioneering and long-range exploratory chemical research. Rossiter is a member and past president of the board of trustees of the Eastman Dental Center. The Eastman Dental Center is one of the world's foremost teaching, clinical and dental-research organizations. From 1977-1980, he served as chairman of the U.S. National Committee to the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). He is principal architect and chairman of IUPAC's Chemrawn Committee (Chemical Research Applied to World Needs) and has served as a member of the United States National Academy's Advisory Committee for the International Council of Scientific Activities. Rossiter also serves on the scientific advisory boards of both the Council on Chemical Research and the U.S. Agency for International Development. He has served as a member of the editorial advisory board of Science Magazine and Chemical and Engineering News and is a senior editor for John Wiley & Sons Inc. Publishers and co-edited Physical Methods of Chemistry, which is a major treatise found in many technical libraries throughout the world.

Douglas H. Heath, 1978-79

Douglas Heath was from Haverford College.

Leo Steinberg, 1979-80

Leo Steinberg is a professor emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania and a veteran art historian on The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art. He has long been a legendary figure in this field. Opposed to other critics who perceive Leonardo as capturing a single moment in time in Last Supper, Steinberg feels that the table scene portrays successiveness and duration.

Hugo T. Engelhardt, Jr., 1980-81

No biography available

Paul Henry Lang, 1981-82

(1901-1991) Paul Henry Lang was a reknowned musicologist, music critic, bassoonist and I.D.R.S. Honorary Member. His career began in 1922 as a bassoonist in Budapest Orchestras but soon after his interests switched to the study of music history and musicology. Through his writing, he helped to determine the shape of musicology discourse in the U.S. This influence was also evident through his teaching at Columbia University and as editor of Musical Quarterly from 1945 to 1973. Lang was a music critic for the New York Herald Tribune from 1945 to 1965 as well as a regular contributor to High Fidelity and Opus magazines. His book, Music in Western Civilization has been the standard music text since its first publishing in 1941.

Jessie Bernard, 1982-83

(1903-1996) Jessie Bernard was an American sociologist who provided insights on sex, women, marriage, and the interaction of the family and community. Her research and writings on women's issues provided a scholarly foundation for the modern feminist revolution. As a central figure in the feminist revolution, she studied subtle forms of sex discrimination as scholar in residence for the United States Commission on Civil Rights and by becoming a founding board member for the Center for Women in Policy Studies. She had several books published within ten years of her retirement including The Sex Game, The Female World, The Future of Marriage, and The Future of Motherhood. These recognized her as a premier scholar of the women's movement.

Thomas Eisner, 1983-84

Thomas Eisner is an entomologist and professor of chemical ecology at Cornell University. From 1955-57, he worked as a research associate at Harvard with sociologist, E O Wilson. In 1957, he joined Cornell and proceeded to make major contributions to studies of insect physiology, adaptation, and behaviour. He specialized in the web-making communication in spiders, and the spraying defenses of the bombardier beetle. He is considered internationally as the father of chemical ecology, studying the roles chemicals play in the interactions among living creatures. Eisner was also a proficient photographer of insects as well as the author of five books and over 250 scientific articles. He was a promoter of human rights, opposed to nuclear war, and an active environmentalist and conservationist.

Mancur Olson, 1984-85

(1932-1998) Mancur Olson was the Chair and Principal Investigator of IRIS. After leaving the government in 1969, he became a professor of Economics at the University of Maryland at College Park. He was known for his research on how groups that represent specialized interests affect the growth of the economy. He was named a distinguished professor of economics in 1979. Two of his books included The Logic of Collective Action (1971) and The Rise and Decline of Nations (1982). He was also the author of 6 other books and 150 articles. He created the University of Maryland's Center for Institutional Reform and the Informal Sector in year 1990. This center has advised 30 countries ranging from Russia to Egypt with the help of grants from the Agency for International Development.

Robert F. Berdhofer, Jr., 1985-86

No biography available.

Rustum Roy, 1986-87

Rustum Roy was described by Newsweek as being the "leading contrarian" among U.S. scientists. He is the only practicing well-known scientist who has studied and written about U.S. science policy from the inside. He is the senior-most member in the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, in which he specialized in ceramics, and is a foreign member of the Swedish, Japanese, and Indian National Academies. Roy will be remembered as the most effective champion of interdisciplinarity and integrative learning. He was involved in reforming religious institutions all over the world and helped to start what is one of the oldest ecumenical house churches in the country. Roy has also written many books on various subjects such as: science policy, sexual ethics, radioactive waste management, and liturgies for small groups.

Bishop Job, 1987-88

No biography available.

Jerry & Lucille Levin, 1988-89

No biography available.

Frederick M. Asher, 1989-90

Frederick M. Asher is a specialist in South Asian art. He currently researches the architecture of contested religious space. In addition, Asher is currently the Chair of the Board of Trustees of the American Institute of Indian Studies, South Asia Field Editor for CAA Reviews and South Asia editor for Archives of Asian Art. He presently chairs the Department of Art History at the University of Minnesota. Some of his recent publications include: An Ancient Slate Quarry Revisited: A Source Located; Blurring Boundaries: A Muslim Deigner of Hindu Temples; Defining Early Indian Art; Eastern India; Shaping Contestation: The Katra Mound at Mathura; The Bodhgaya Temple: Whose Structure is it?; and Art of India: Prehistory to the Present. Asher has received the Ford Foundation Challenge Grant for support of the American Institute of Indian Studies and the International Center for Study of Bengal Art Honorary Fellow.

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Will Judy Lecturers' Biographies