Kritikos Professorship in the Humanities

Established in 1993 with a generous gift from David B. Stern and Nancy Guitteau, the Kritikos Professorship brings to the university and to the state distinguished scholars, critics, and leaders in the humanities. This lectureship was created to foster the education of UO students and faculty, and to promote intelligent, critical, public discourse across Oregon. Kritikos Professors are known for speaking their minds, even if what they have to say is currently unfashionable. Kritikos lectures are published each year and are available through the Humanities Center.

Past Kritikos professors have included John Shelby Spong, Louis Menand, Richard Rodriguez, Stanley Crouch, Robert Alter, William Kennedy, Milton Viorst, and Victor Davis Hanson.

Richard Taruskin, a prominent musicologist and public intellectual, will deliver this year’s Kritikos lecture, "Did Somebody Say Censorship?" in Eugene on Tuesday, May 13, 2008 at 7:30 p.m. in 182 Lillis Hall, 955 E. 13th Ave.  The lecture will be repeated in Portland on Thursday, May 15, 2008 at 6:30 p.m. in the Benson Hotel Crystal Ballroom. The Portland lecture will be preceded at 5:45 p.m. by a reception in the Benson Fireplace Lobby. Drawing on sound bites from musical works that have been altered in the course of their reception, the UC Berkeley musicologist will provocatively explore when it is appropriate to speak of censorship, and whether censorship is always a bad thing. Taruskin has worked as a specialist in several fields of music history, and has transformed all of them.  He is the author of the monumental six-volume, 4,252-page “Oxford History of Western Music” (Oxford University Press, 2005), along with six other books.  He has been a frequent contributor to the “New York Times” and “The New Republic” and has won numerous awards for his scholarship. During his visit to the UO campus, Taruskin will lead a graduate seminar and meet with a group of undergraduate students from the Living Learning Center who have organized a colloquium around his visit.  Taruskin will also meet with Oregon Bach Festival organizers to discuss the controversial St. John Passion performance, scheduled as part of this summer’s Bach Festival.

Complete list of previous Kritikos Professors

updated: 5/2/08