Wittrock Lecture

The Wittrock Lecture Series was instigated in 2019, in honour of the contributions of Professor Björn Wittrock. As Principal of the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study (SCAS) in the years 1996-2018, and the driving force ever since its creation in1985, Björn Wittrock has contributed significantly to the institute’s strong position as an internationally renowned institute for advanced study, in addition to the social sciences and the humanities in Sweden, Europe, and beyond. His research has advanced several intellectual fields that include the sociology of ancient, medieval and modern societies, global history, intellectual history, and civilizational analysis.

The Wittrock Lecture Series is arranged annually. At these events, internationally renowned and state-of-the-art scholars are invited to give a public lecture on a
theme that resonates with the scholarly profile of SCAS. Topics may range across the humanities and social sciences, and cover a broad spectrum of issues related to global history and modernity, globalization processes and social change, intellectual history, and the plurality of knowledge cultures. The lecture series
also aims to address complex challenges facing contemporary society – from the shifting nature of globalization, to crises in democracy, or the future of governance and human civilization

Previous Wittrock Lectures:

8 March, 2024. The 6th WITTROCK LECTURE
Michèle Lamont, Professor of Sociology and of African and African American Studies & Robert I. Goldman Professor of European Studies, Harvard University
Seeing Others: How to Redefine Worth in a Divided World

16 February, 2023. The 5th WITTROCK LECTURE
Fredrik Logevall, Laurence D. Belfer Professor of International Affairs, Harvard University
Writing a Political Life: On the Challenging Relationship Between Biography and History

10 June, 2022. The 4th WITTROCK LECTURE
Linda Colley, Non-resident Long-term Fellow for Programmes in Early Modern and Modern History, SCAS.
Shelby M.C. Davis 1958 Professor of History, Princeton University
Constitutions in Times of Crisis

9 June, 2022. The 3rd WITTROCK LECTURE
Hans Joas, Ernst Troeltsch Professor for the Sociology of Religion, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and Professor of Sociology and Social Thought, University of Chicago
Moral Change and the Ambiguity of Religions: Christianity Between Racism and the Struggle Against It

25 February, 2020. The 2nd WITTROCK LECTURE
Helga Nowotny, Professor emerita of Science and Technology Studies, ETH Zurich. Chair, ERA Council Forum Austria. Former President, European Research Council
Life in the Digital Time Machine


15 February, 2019. The 1st WITTROCK LECTURE
Jürgen Kocka, Professor Emeritus of History, Freie Universität Berlin
Historians and the Future