Sunday, January 11 / 3 pm / Campbell Hall

Former White House strategist Kevin Phillips, author of the eye-opening Wealth and Democracy, has been a political commentator for over three decades. His latest book, and this lecture, examines the machinations of the Bush “dynastization.”

General public $8 / UCSB students $6

Tuesday, January 13 / 8 pm / Victoria Hall, 33 W. Victoria St., Santa Barbara / Free

Lou Cannon, award-winning journalist, acclaimed biographer of Ronald Reagan and author of President Reagan: Role of a Lifetime, will use his keen eye to examine the links between “reel” life and real politics.
Co-presented with the Walter H. Capps Center

Wednesday, February 4 / 8 pm / Campbell Hall

Alex Chadwick, host of newsmagazine Day to Day, presents Radio Expeditions, a signature series of NPR’s Morning Edition that uses state-of-the-art-recording equipment to report on exploration, world cultures, scientific discovery and environmental issues.

General public $15 / UCSB students & youth 18 and under $10

Thursday, February 5 / 4 pm / Campbell Hall / Free

MIT professor John Dower is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II. His timely lecture will discuss historical parallels between the ends of WW II and the recent Iraq war.

Thursday, February 5 / 7 pm / Campbell Hall

In feature films, the director is God; in documentary films, God is the director —Alfred Hitchcock

It’s a boom time for documentary film, as filmmakers find new idioms and new vocabularies. This panel will be an engaging and entertaining look at nonfiction films by the people who make them. Invited guests at press time include Jonathan Demme (Stop Making Sense, The Agronomist), George Hickenlooper (Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse, The Mayor of the Sunset Strip).
Co-presented with the Santa Barbara International Film Festival

General public $15 / UCSB students $10

Saturday, February 21 / 2 pm / Campbell Hall / Free

Hailed as “one of the world’s most influential thinkers” by the Washington Post, Lester Brown founded the Worldwatch Institute and currently heads Earth Policy Institute. His latest book, and this lecture, puts forth a bold and urgent plan to save the globe from environmental disaster.

Sunday, February 22 / 3 pm / Campbell Hall

Feiler, best-selling author of six books including Walking the Bible, will deliver a lecture based on his latest book, a personal quest to better understand Abraham, the shared father of Jews, Christians and Muslims.

General public $8 / UCSB students $6

Saturday, February 28 / 2 pm / Arlington Theatre

Emmy and Grammy Award-winning Al Franken is one of the original creators of Saturday Night Live and a best-selling author of books such as Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot and Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right. His hilarious presentation is sure to incite and be insightful.

General public $35 / UCSB students $15

Thursday, March 4 / 8 pm / Campbell Hall

Acclaimed paleontologist and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Paul Sereno has unearthed dinosaur fossils on several continents, including the most primitive dinosaur ever to be discovered, Eoraptor, the “dawn raptor.” He will present an engaging illustrated lecture.

General public $15 / UCSB students & youth 18 and under $10

Monday, March 8 / 8 pm / Campbell Hall

She can make you laugh and cry in the space of a few paragraphs. —The New Yorker

One of our best-loved authors Anne Lamott is known for her works like Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, and for her ruthless honesty and tender humor about topics like motherhood, alcoholism and faith.
Lamott is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow in the College of Creative Studies.

General public $10 / UCSB students $8