#  Navin Narayan Memorial Lecture 

 



 ##  

  expand\_more  

 
  

 

   ![Navin Narayan](/sites/g/files/omnuum9666/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/socialstudies/files/narayan.jpg?itok=JSV0HGha) 

 

In 2000, Kalman and Kusuma Narayan endowed The Navin Narayan Memorial Lecture in honor of their late son, Social Studies concentrator, Navin Narayan.

Narayan was a remarkable and accomplished young man. From age 14, he worked with the [Red Cross](https://www.redcross.org/red-cross-youth/opportunities/scholarships-and-awards/navin-narayan-college-scholarship/more-about-navin-narayan.html), rising to chair one of its national committees and advising then-director Elizabeth Dole. As a concentrator, Narayan conducted field work in India for his senior thesis, graduating summa cum laude, winning a [Rhodes Scholarship](http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1998/12/7/three-students-awarded-rhodes-pthree-undergraduates/?print=1), and gaining admission to Harvard Medical School.

In addition to this endowed Lecture, the American Red Cross established the [Navin Narayan Scholarship](https://www.redcross.org/red-cross-youth/opportunities/scholarships-and-awards/navin-narayan-college-scholarship.html) which is granted "to exceptional graduating high school seniors who show high academic competence and ambition, longevity and dedication to the American Red Cross, and leadership in their respective positions."

## Past lectures:

### 2025-26

Sankar Muthu  
Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Chicago  
“Enlightenment Diagnoses of Global Oppression: On the 'Dystopia of Self-Hatred'”

### 2024-25

Jo Guldi  
Professor of Quantitative Methods, Emory University  
“History for a Changing Planet: Long-term and Short-term Perspectives on How to Protect the Planet”

### 2023-24

Kenzie Bok  
Administrator/CEO of the Boston Housing Authority  
"Justice in Housing: Theory and Practice"

### 2022-23

Brad DeLong  
Professor of Economics, UC Berkeley  
"Social Theory for the 21st Century"

### 2019-20

Sarah Lewis  
Associate Professor of History of Art and Architecture and African and African American Studies, Harvard University  
"Race and the American Landscape: Visual Tactics of the Stand Your Ground Era"



 



###    2001-2019 Lectures  expand\_more  

 

## 2018-19

Arlie Hochschild  
Professor Emerita, UC Berkeley  
"Strangers in Their Own Land: The Way Forward"

## 2017-18

Robert Putnam  
Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy, Harvard University  
"How Did We Get Here? Social Change in America, 1900-2020"

## 2016-17

E.J. Dionne  
Brookings Institution Senior Fellow  
*Washington Post* Columnist  
"Defending Democracy in an Age of Disaffection"

## 2015-16

Peniel E. Joseph  
Barbara Jordan Chair in Politics and Ethics at the LBJ School of Public Affairs  
Professor of History at The University of Texas at Austin  
"From Selma to Ferguson: Civil Rights, Black Power, and Racial Justice in the Age of Obama and Black Lives Matter"

## 2014-15

Martha Minow  
Morgan and Helen Chu Dean and Professor of Law, Harvard Law School  
"Justice and Debt Forgiveness"

## 2013-14

Eric Nelson  
Professor of Government, Harvard University   
"The Lord Alone Shall Be King of America: Hebraism and the Republican Turn of 1776"

## 2012

Melissa Lane   
Professor of Politics, Princeton University   
"Eco-Republic: Plato and Sustainable Citizenship"

## 2011 

Anne-Marie Slaughter   
Professor of Politics, Princeton University  
Former Director of Policy Planning at the State Department  
"Connect the World: Technology, Society, and Global Problem-Solving"

## 2010

Amy Guttmann   
President of the University of Pennsylvania   
"Social Studies, Then and Now"

## 2009

Rory Stewart   
Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy

## 2008

Louise Richardson  
Executive Dean, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study  
"What Terrorists Want: Understanding the Enemy, Containing the Threat"

## 2007

Jennifer Leaning  
Harvard Humanitarian Initiative  
"Ask What You Can Do for the World: The Legacy of Navin Narayan"

## 2006

Paul Farmer  
Founding Director of Partners in Health  
"Global Health Equity"

## 2005

Michael Ignatieff  
Carr Professor of Human Rights Practice  
Director, Carr Center for Human Rights and Policy  
"Human Rights and Citizenship in an Age of Terror"

## 2004

Father Bryan Hehir  
President, Catholic Charities USA, Archdiocese of Boston  
"Religion, Politics, and Peace"

## 2003

Samantha Power  
Founding Executive Director of the Carr Center of Human Policy  
"Human Rights and American Power: An Inherent Oxymoron or a Necessary Merger"

## 2002

David G. Nathan, M.D.  
President Emeritus, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute  
Robert A. Stranahan Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School  
"Ethical, Political, and Financial Challenges to Progress in Medicine"

## 2001

Robert Reich  
University Professor and Maurice B. Hexter Professor of Social and Economic Policy, Heller School, Brandeis University  
"Whatever Happened to the Social Contract?"