[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhhC_N6Bm_s&w=560&h=315] Yesterday a friend recommended The End of the Tour, a movie about writer David Foster Wallace based on Rolling Stone journalist David Lipsky‘s book Although of Course You End up Becoming Yourself. I manage to convince my 19-year-old daughter to […]
commencement speeches
Have You Seen Ben Sasse’s Commencement Speech?
What is this? Watch Sasse mock the graduating class of 2020, take multiple shots at China, make fun of the name “Jeremy,” tell kids that they are heavier than his generation, belittle “gym teachers,” and tell students not to study […]
Barack Obama Will Deliver Nationally Televised Commencement Address to the Class of 2020
If you are a member of the high school class of 2020 you can tell your kids and grandkids that Barack Obama was your commencement speaker. Here is the Chicago Tribune: Former President Barack Obama will deliver a televised prime-time […]
Cornel West’s Commencement Address at Harvard Divinity School
This resonates with me on many levels: [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3TyTe827yg&w=560&h=315] Read the transcript here. A taste: As I look at myself, I can see the white supremacy in me. But oh, when I was at Charlottesville, looking in the eyes of […]
Mike Pence at Taylor
Mike Pence gave the commencement address earlier today at Taylor University. Taylor’s invitation to Pence has been controversial. I wrote about it in a piece at Religion News Service. As expected, dozens of students and faculty walked out of the […]
Commencement at Liberty University
In case you missed it, Vice President Mike Pence delivered the commencement address on Saturday at Liberty University, a school that claims to be the largest Christian university in the world. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYi8JnDT5Fs&w=560&h=315] Court evangelical and Liberty president Jerry Falwell […]
Danielle Allen’s Commencement Address at Pomona College
Scroll ahead to the 1:08:22 mark: [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u–gu6XrDVI&w=560&h=315] When you are finished watching Allen’s short speech, read Conor Freidersdorf’s take at The Atlantic.
My Piece at *Religion Dispatches* on Jimmy Carter’s Visit to Liberty University
Here is a taste: Last year Donald Trump delivered the commencement address at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. Jerry Falwell Jr., the president of the university, said that Trump’s speech “will go down in history as one of the greatest commencement speeches […]
Jimmy Carter Will Deliver 2018 Liberty University Commencement Address
Last year it was Donald Trump. This year it is Jimmy Carter. Some context: Here is what Jerry Falwell Jr. said about Jimmy Carter in 2016. (Fast-forward to the 4:35 mark): [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdtwHaKsVlc&w=560&h=315] And then this happened. Jimmy Carter is […]
The Difference Between “The Intellectual” and the “Person of Intellectual Achievement”
This comes from the writer Tom Wolfe‘s 2000 commencement address at Boston University: We must be careful to make a distinction between the intellectual and the person of intellectual achievement. The two are very, very different animals. There are people […]
What Is Water?
Earlier today, in a post on the humanities in the Silicon Valley, I linked to a video excerpt from the late David Foster Wallace‘s 2005 Kenyon College commencement address. Many of you are familiar with it. Here is the entire […]
Christian College Commencement Addresses
Byron Borger of Hearts & Minds Books plugs Serious Dreams: Bold Ideas for the Rest of Your Life. It is a collection of commencement addresses from Christian colleges. It is important to realize that not all Christian college commencement addresses are […]
Court Evangelical Jerry Falwell on Trump’s Commencement Address: “I think it will go down in history as one of the greatest commencement speeches ever”
This is what a Court Evangelical sounds like: [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7d3ZjwHRrc&w=560&h=315] Here is more. Follow the link for another Falwell Jr. interview with Fox News. I am unable to embed the video, but here is a taste of a piece at The […]
Ed Ayers Delivers Commencement Address at University of Mary Washington
Edward Ayers is the President Emeritus at the University of Richmond, an innovator in the field of digital history, and one of our best historians of the 19th-century American South. On Saturday he delivered the commencement address at the University […]
Trump Will Be Back at Liberty University Next Week
The POTUS will be delivering the Liberty University commencement address next Saturday. Many are very excited that Trump will be there. One donor gave the college a large painting of Trump to honor the occasion. You can see Jerry Falwell […]
Trump is Heading Back to Liberty University…
…as the university’s 2017 commencement speaker. I wonder who got dumped to make room, at this late date, for The Donald. Here is a report from The Chronicle of Higher Education: Liberty University announced on Wednesday that its commencement in May […]
The 300 Best Commencement Addresses Ever Delivered
The folks at National Public Radio have chosen 300 addresses going back to 1774. They include speeches by Al Gore, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Anne Lamott, Barack Obama, Barbara Kingsolver, Bill Clinton, Bill Cosby, Billy Jean King, Bobby Knight, Bono, Conan O’Brien, […]
You Are Not Special
Have you heard yet about David McCullough Jr.’s commencement address at Wellesley High School, one of the top public high schools in the country? (And yes, he is the son of the historian/writer David McCullough. He teaches English at the […]