Misher Festival of Arts and Humanities
In partnership with the nationwide America 250 celebrations, the 2026 Misher Festival of Arts & Humanities presents FREEDOMS, a week-long festival of events and excursions that invite joyful learning, creative exploration, and meaningful conversation. Together, we will reflect on the artistic, cultural, and political freedoms that shape our shared past and our collective future. Students, faculty, staff, alumni, and community members are warmly invited to take part in a dynamic lineup of performances, workshops, lectures, and conversations. Explore the First Amendment freedoms of expression through protest music, editorial voices, and creative writing. Experience the expressive power of the arts, from Irish dance, Flamenco, and a rare dance tribute to Frances E. W. Harper. Engage deeply with questions of political freedom and human rights through thought-provoking lectures, open classrooms, and book-club discussions. Come for a single event—or immerse yourself in the full week. All events are free and open to the public unless noted.
2026 Misher Visiting Professor Lecture with M. Gessen
Thursday, March 19, 2026
2:00 – 3:00 pm
Mandeville Teletorium
Reception to follow
One of today’s most incisive observers of democracy, M. Gessen is the author of eleven books examining power, freedom, and the fragile structures that sustain open societies. Their National Book Award–winning The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia (2017) traces the collapse of democratic promise in post-Soviet Russia, while The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin (2012) offers a chilling account of how authoritarian leadership under Vladimir Putin consolidated power with astonishing speed.
Gessen’s work on questions of contemporary American democracy—especially the erosion of norms, institutions, and shared truth—has shaped public understanding during a period of intense political and cultural upheaval. Gessen is the author of Surviving Autocracy (2020), a longtime writer for The New Yorker, and an Opinion columnist at The New York Times who has received numerous honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and the 2024 George Polk Award. Gessen is the founding director of the Russian Independent Media Archive and Distinguished Professor at CUNY’s Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism.
Readers interested in Gessen’s more personal work are welcome to join the Misher Festival/SJU Book Club discussion (Wednesday, 3/18) of Masha Gessen’s memoir, Esther and Ruzya: How My Grandmothers Survived Hitler’s War and Stalin’s Peace.