Past Festivals
CHF I: Expressions of Freedom (1990)
Notable Presenters: Arthur Miller, Ed Paschke, Philip Gossett
CHF II: Culture Contact (1991)
Notable Presenters: Toni Morrison, John Edgar Wideman, Michael Ondaatje, Sandra Cisneros
CHF III: From Freedom to Equality (1992)
Notable Presenters: John Updike, Czesław Miłosz
CHF IV: From Communication to Understanding (1993)
Notable Presenters: William Safire, David McCullough, Marlo Thomas
CHF V: Crime and Punishment (1994)
Notable Presenters: Tom Wolfe, Scott Turow, Sherman Alexie
CHF VI: Love and Marriage (1995)
Notable Presenters: Stephen Sondheim, Stevie Wonder, Diane Ackerman, Betty Friedan
CHF VII: Birth and Death (1996)
Notable Presenters: Edward Albee, Jane Urquhart, Stephen Ambrose
CHF VIII: Work & Play (1997)
Notable Presenters: Peter O'Toole, Amartya Sen, Michael Moore
CHF IX: He/She (1998)
Notable Presenters: Wendy Wasserstein, Edward Hirsch, Galway Kinnell
CHF X: New & Old (1999)
Notable Presenters: Yusef Komunyakaa, Mordecai Richler
CHF XI: NOW! (2000)
Notable Presenters: Alan Lightman, Harold Ramis, Alison Lurie
CHF XII: Words & Pictures (2001)
Notable Presenters: Leonard Nimoy, Jonathan Franzen, Witold Rybczynski, Junot Diaz, Art Spiegelman
CHF XIII: Brains & Beauty (2002)
Notable Presenters: Francis Fukuyama, Joyce Carol Oates, Jeffrey Eugenides, Francine Prose, Mira Nair
CHF XIV: Saving + Spending (2003)
Notable Presenters: Roberto Benigni, Oscar Hijuelos, Tom Wolfe
CHF XV: Time (2004)
Notable Presenters: August Wilson, Maxine Hong Kingston, Clive Barker
CHF XVI: Home and Away (2005)
Notable Presenters: Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie, Annie Proulx, Susan Orlean
CHF XVII: Peace and War (2006)
Notable Presenters: Paul Krugman, Azar Nafisi, Joel Meyerowitz, Frank McCourt, Joan Baez, Errol Morris, Wesley Clark, Garry Trudeau
CHF XVIII: The Climate of Concern (2007)
Notable presenters: Wangari Maathai, E.L. Doctorow, Philip Pullman, Majora Carter, Peter Singer, Roger Payne, Terry Tempest Williams, W.S. Merwin, Edward Burtynsky, Maya Lin, Dave Eggers, Colin Quinn, Cat Chow, Greil Marcus, Amartya Sen, and the head writers of The Onion
CHF XIX: Thinking Big! (2008)
Notable presenters: David McCullough, Jeffrey Sachs, Robert Darnton, Wendy Kopp, Erika Doss, Robert Irwin, Naomi Klein, Lawrence Lessig, Amitav Ghosh, Colonel Eileen Collins, Jonathan Alter, Ronald Mallett, and Laurence Tribe
CHF XX: Laughter (2009)
Notable presenters: Matt Groening, John Hodgman, Bob Sabiston, Lynda Barry, Jules Feiffer, Robert Mankoff, Barbara Ehrenreich, Paul Farmer, Claire McCaskill, Robert Reich, Billy Collins, Ronald K.L. Collins, Kay Ryan, Tim Reid, Tom Dreesen, Ian Frazier, John Adams (composer)
CHFXXI: The Body (2010)
Notable presenters: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Sam Shepard, Dan Savage, Sarah Jones (stage actress), Sherwin B. Nuland, Laura Kipnis, Frank Shorter, Alpana Singh
CHF XXII: tech•knowledgē (2011)
Notable presenters: Stephen Sondheim, Jonathan Franzen, Jeanne Gang, William Gibson, Michael Taussig, Cathy Davidson, Yuri Lane, Claudia Rankine, Jared Diamond
CHF XXIII: America (2012)
Notable presenters: Camille Paglia, Mark Helprin, Charles C. Mann, John Lewis Gaddis, Yves Béhar, Austan Goolsbee, Neil MacGregor, Nate Silver, Ian Frazier, Russ Feingold, David Brooks, Elie Wiesel, Richard Ford
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Famous quotes containing the word festivals:
“Why wont they let a year die without bringing in a new one on the instant, cant they use birth control on time? I want an interregnum. The stupid years patter on with unrelenting feet, never stopping—rising to little monotonous peaks in our imaginations at festivals like New Year’s and Easter and Christmas—But, goodness, why need they do it?”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“This is certainly not the place for a discourse about what festivals are for. Discussions on this theme were plentiful during that phase of preparation and on the whole were fruitless. My experience is that discussion is fruitless. What sets forth and demonstrates is the sight of events in action, is living through these events and understanding them.”
—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)