Events
The hallmark of the Society's public visage is its Speaker Series, which draws distinguished individuals from myriad disciplines to address the Society and its guests each Friday evening during the fall and spring academic sessions. Noteworthy speakers over the years include Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Jimmy Carter, Chief Justice William Rehnquist, U.S. Senators John Warner and George Allen, Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore, Vermont Governor and presidential candidate Howard Dean, Tom Clancy, William Faulkner, George Will, Ruth Westheimer, Antarctica explorer Roald Amundsen, Congressman Bob Barr, Colombian President Victor Mosquera Chaux, John Dos Passos, Avery Dulles, U.S. Senator and presidential candidate Gary Hart, Christina Hoff Sommers, Congressman Asa Hutchinson, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Alphonso Jackson, Playwright and Congresswoman Clare Boothe Luce, Madame Chiang Kai-Shek Soong May-ling, Kenny Mayne, Sharon Olds, César Pelli, National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, and Edward Teller, inventor of the Hydrogen Bomb.
Each week, members of the Society engage in spirited debate on matters ranging from current events to philosophy and law to humorous topics. Members frequently present original works of Literature and Poetry or give readings of the works of other authors. Each semester, the Society holds a number of competitive Debate, Oratorical, and Literature events, and engages other organizations in friendly contests of debate or athletic skill. The Society hosts several formal events annually, including Wilson's Day, the Restoration Ball, and Founder's Day - first held in 1832.
Read more about this topic: Jefferson Literary And Debating Society
Famous quotes containing the word events:
“Just as a mirror may be used to reflect images, so ancient events may be used to understand the present.”
—Chinese proverb.
“The geometry of landscape and situation seems to create its own systems of time, the sense of a dynamic element which is cinematising the events of the canvas, translating a posture or ceremony into dynamic terms. The greatest movie of the 20th century is the Mona Lisa, just as the greatest novel is Gray’s Anatomy.”
—J.G. (James Graham)
“One thing that makes art different from life is that in art things have a shape ... it allows us to fix our emotions on events at the moment they occur, it permits a union of heart and mind and tongue and tear.”
—Marilyn French (b. 1929)