St. John鈥檚 College Brings World-Class Speakers to Annapolis for Spring Formal Lecture and Concert Series
Lectures and concerts are free and open to the public
ANNAPOLIS, MD [January 7, 2025] — St. John’s College has announced its Spring formal lecture series on the Annapolis campus. On Friday evenings, members of the St. John’s College community—alumni, friends, faculty, staff, students, and neighbors—gather in the Francis Scott Key Auditorium to hear a lecture or concert from visiting scholars, artists, poets, or faculty. These events are offered free to the community.
Lecturers include members of the St. John’s College faculty—known as tutors—and professors from notable universities across the country. Each lecture is followed by a question period and an engaging discussion between the lecturer and attendees. The full list of concerts and lectures is here: Formal Lecture Series on the Annapolis Campus. Please visit this page for updates. All lectures are held Fridays at 7:30 p.m. in the Francis Scott Key Auditorium, St. John’s College, 60 College Avenue, Annapolis, MD, unless otherwise noted.
“In the St. John’s classroom, students and faculty converse together about fundamental questions. In the Friday night lecture, we get to hear a longer account from someone who has thought deeply about the topic,” says dean of the college Susan Paalman. “The question period after each lecture is an important part, as it sparks a conversation amongst the whole community.”
January 10: St. John’s College tutor Gregory Recco will deliver his lecture “Foundational Urgency and Institutional Inertia”
February 7: St. John’s College tutor Mary Elizabeth Halper will deliver her lecture “On Written Speech.”
February 14: Eva Jablonka (Tel Aviv University) will deliver her lecture “On Evolution.”
February 19: General (Ret.) John R. Allen will deliver the Kristensen Memorial Lecture.
February 21: Sara Klingenstein (Harvard) will deliver her lecture “Japanese tea rituals.” This lecture has been canceled; check back for further updates to our schedule.
March 21: Majel Connery in concert.
March 28: Emily Austin (U. Chicago) will deliver her lecture “The Power of Solitude in Sophocles’ Philoctetes.”
April 4: Jessy Jordan (Mount St. Mary’s) will deliver his lecture “Ethics, ancient and modern.”
April 11-12: Jane Bennett (Johns Hopkins) will deliver the Andrew Steiner Memorial Lecture and Seminar.
April 18: St. John’s College tutor Matt Caswell will deliver his lecture.
April 25: King William Players present Arcadia. Performance will be held in the Great Hall.
ABOUT ST. JOHN’S COLLEGE
St. John’s College is the most distinctive liberal arts college in the country due to our interdisciplinary program, in which 200 of the most revolutionary great books from across 3,000 years of human thought are explored in student-driven, discussion-based classes for undergraduates, graduates and life-long adult learners. By probing world-changing ideas in literature, philosophy, mathematics, science, music, history, and more, students leave St. John’s with a foundation for success in such fields as law, government, research, STEM, media, and education. Located on two campuses in two historic state capitals—Annapolis, Maryland, and Santa Fe, New Mexico—St. John’s is the third-oldest college in the United States and has been hailed as the “most forward-thinking, future-proof college in America” by Quartz and as a “high-achieving angel hovering over the landscape of American higher education” by the Los Angeles Times. Learn more at sjc.edu.
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