Past Fellows Speakers and Programs

 

1992    
  May Richard Murphy
Poet, Fellow of the Royal Society
(Held at then-University Provost George Gilpin's home)
  October 22 Helen Vendler
A. Kingsley Porter University Professor, Harvard University; 2004 Jefferson Lecturer
(Held at then-University Provost George Gilpin's home)
  December Meeting to formally establish the McFarlin Fellows
(based on those earlier dinners)
1993    
  October 18 Geoffrey Ward and Dayton Duncan
Documentary Filmmakers; Five time Emmy Award winner (Ward); 1989 National Book Critics Circle Award winner (Ward)
1994    
  February 3 Richard Murphy - On Writing His Memoirs
Poet, Fellow of the Royal Society
  March 22 Sir V. S. Naipaul  - On A Way in the World
Author, 2001 Nobel Laureate; 1971 Booker Prize winner; 1993 David Cohen Prize winner for lifetime achievement in British Literature
  November 15 Parker J. Palmer - On the Utility of Rare Book Collections
Author, Educator; namesake of the Parker J. Palmer Courage to Teach Award of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education
1995    
  February 15 James Fallows
Editor, NPR Commentator, Author; 1982 National Book Award winner; 2003 National Magazine Award winner
  April 25 Joan Troccoli - On George Catlin and Sir Thomas Phillipps
Deputy Director at the Denver Art Museum.
  October 10 Philip Ziegler - On London at War
Biographer, Historian
  October 22 William Kittredge and Annick Smith
Authors, Essayists; board member of the Sundance Institute (Smith)
  November 17 Ben Graf Henneke - On Laura Keene
Author, Educator; past President of The University of Tulsa
1996    
  February 21 Mary Robinson
Seventh President of Ireland, 1990-1997; 2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient
  March 11 Ken Burns
Documentary Filmmaker; Two time Academy Award nominee; Seven time Emmy Award winner
  April 1 David Vaisey, C.B.E. - "Bodley Library:  Past Treasures, Future Prospects"
Librarian, Bodleian Library, Oxford University, 1986-1996
  September 16 William Eddins
Assistant Conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Associate Conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra; 2000 Seaver Conducting Award winner
  October 16 Laura Wee Lay Laq - Examination of the Pre-Columbian Pottery Collections
Ceramicist, Artist, Illustrator
  October 24 Lucille Clifton
Poet; 2000 National Book Award winner; 2007 Rita Lilly Poetry Prize winner
(cancelled due to illness)
  November 19 A. G. Mojtabai - On Hospice Volunteering
Author
1997    
  February 4 Colin Franklin - "Twenty-Five Years a Bookseller"
Author, Antiquarian Bookseller; Honorary President of the Oxford University Society of Bibliophiles
  April 3 Thomas F. Staley
Director of the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at The University of Texas at Austin; founding editor, James Joyce Quarterly
  September 25 James G. Watson - "Faulkner at 100"
Faulkner scholar; past Francis W. O'Hornett Professor of Literature, The University of Tulsa
  October 22 Scott Ellsworth - On Huck Finn
Historian
1998    
  April 27 Darcy O'Brien - Readings from his works
True Crime Author; 1997 inductee into the Oklahoma Writers Hall of Fame
  October 29 Charles Brown - "Mixed Blessings: The Complex Social Life of the Cliff Swallow"
Biologist; past curator of ornithology at the Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University
1999    
  January 12 Sidney F. and Elizabeth Stege Huttner - "Orchids, Gold Leaf and Padded Leather:  The Adventures of 'Lucille' in America"
Book Collectors
  April 15 Sir V. S. Naipaul - On Beyond Belief
Author, 2001 Nobel Laureate; 1971 Booker Prize winner; 1993 David Cohen Prize winner for lifetime achievement in British Literature
  September 23 Philbrook Exhibit of Artists Books
Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, Oklahoma
  October 21 Robert Hirst - "Editing Mark Twain"
General editor of the Mark Twain Papers and Project, Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley
2000    
  February 17 Carl Rollyson - On Biography and Rebecca West
Author, Biographer; 2003-2007 President of the Rebecca West Society
  September 14 Rupert Hart Davis library unwrapping
 
  March 30 Mark Singer - On The New Yorker
Author; staff writer for The New Yorker
  October 19 John Edgar Wideman
Author; Two time winner of the International PEN/Faulkner Award
2001    
  February 22 John Agresto
Scholar, Lecturer
  April 26 Seamus Heaney
Poet, 1995 Nobel Laureate; 2006 T.S. Eliot Award winner; 2009 David Cohen Prize winner for lifetime achievement in British Literature
  November 8 Tim O'Brien
Author; 1979 National Book Award winner
2002    
  March 7 Brian Greene - On The Elegant Universe
Physicist, Author; Pulitzer Prize finalist
  April 24 Ronald M. George - On Law as Literature
Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court
  October 24 Ron Carlson
Author, Book reviewer; National Society of Arts and Letters Literature Award winner
2003    
  March 6 Eva Brann - On Paul Scott's Towers of Silence
Scholar; 2005 recipient of the National Humanities Medal
  April 22 Calvin Trillin
Humorist, Columnist
  June 16 Private showing of "In Good Company"
An exhibit on James Joyce, in conjuction with the North American James Joyce Symposium 
  September 16 Peter Matthiessen
Author, Naturalist; Two time National Book Award winner; co-founder of The Paris Review
  November 6 J. M. Coetzee
Author, 2003 Nobel Laureate; Two time Booker Prize winner
2004    
  April 20 Richard Preston
Author, Columnist
  October 7 Luca Crispi and Stacey Herbert
Scholars; James Joyce Research Fellow at the National Library of Ireland (Crispi); curators of "In Good Company", an exhibit on James Joyce
2005    
  February 19 James Ronda
Historian, Author; H.G. Barnard Chair of Western History, The University of Tulsa (retired)
  April 11 Rick West
Director of the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institute
  October 10 Miguel Angel Centeno
Scholar
2006    
  January 26 Gordon O. Taylor
Scholar; Chapman Professor of English, The University of Tulsa
  April Courtney Brkic - Readings from The Stone Fields
Author, Forensic Anthropologist; 2003 Whiting Writers' Award winner
  October Charles Kimball - On Islam
Author, Theologian; Presidental Professor and Director of Religious Studies, University of Oklahoma 
2007    
  February Nancy Pearl
Author, Librarian, NPR Commentator
  April 19 Michiel Heyns
Scholar, Author, Translator, Book reviewer; 2006 Sunday Times Fiction Prize winner
  November 1 Scott Ellsworth - On 100 Years of Oklahoma Statehood
Historian
2008    
  February 7 James Ronda
Historian, Author; H.G. Barnard Chair of Western History, The University of Tulsa (retired)
  April 10 Brenda Maddox, Lady Maddox
Author, Scholar, Book reviewer, BBC commentator; 1994 Whitbread Book Award for Biography winner
  November 18 Sean Latham
Scholar; editor, James Joyce Quarterly; co-director of the Modernist Journals Project; co-editor of the Journal of Modern Periodical Studies.
2009    
  February 5 Paul Hutton
Historian, Author; Executive Director of the Western History Association
  April 21 Ellen Gilchrist
Author, former NPR commentator; 1984 National Book Award for Fiction winner
  October 22 James G. Watson - "Out of the Mississippi Attenuated: Working with William Faulkner"
Faulkner scholar; past Francis W. O'Hornett Professor of Literature, The University of Tulsa
     
2010    
  February 18 Michael Wallis
Author, Playwright, Historian; Three time Pulitzer Prize nominee; first inductee into the Oklahoma Route 66 Hall of Fame
  April 8 Tracy Letts
Playwright; 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Drama winner; 2008 Tony Award for Best Play winner; 2008 Arena Desk Award for Outstanding Play winner
November 11 Robert Spoo, Ph.D., J.D. - On literature and the law
Associate Professor of Law at The University of Tulsa, formerly tenured English professor and editor of the James Joyce Quarterly at The University of Tulsa.
2011
February 17 David Feldshuh, Ph.D., M.D - Professor and Artistic Director of the Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts at Cornell University. Feldshuh is best known for his play Miss Evers' Boys, which received the New American Play Award, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, and won five Emmy awards as an HBO movie.
April 12 Merlin Holland - Biographer and editor, and the only grandson of Irish writer and playwright Oscar Wilde.
November 17 Brian Hosmer, Ph.D -  H.G. Barnard Chair in Western History at The University of Tulsa and former director of the D'Arcy McNickle Center for American Indian History at the Newberry Library in Chicago.
2012
February 28 Jeffrey Brown - PBS correspondent and Co-host of the PBS NewsHour
April 3 Timothy Egan - 2006 National Book Award winning author of The Worst Hard Time, and 2001 Pulitzer Prize winning journalist for the series How Race is Lived in America.