Week One: June 22–29, 2024
Every summer Chautauqua Institution welcomes over 100,000 visitors, to celebrate community and prioritize personal growth. Many travel here to relax, renew and recharge on the shores of Chautauqua Lake. Join us for our historic 150 anniversary season and see for yourself why Chautauqua was, and continues to be, a cherished destination. Keep scrolling to explore Week One’s Theme: The Evolution of the Modern Presidency.
Featured Entertainment and Events
Chautauqua Lecture Series
The Evolution of the Modern Presidency
Like the world around it, the United States has undergone profound transformation since its founding. Has the office of the American presidency been similarly transformed since its conception in 1789? Shifting and increasing partisanship, coupled with growing responsibilities and consolidated power of the Executive Branch, prompt us this week to situate ourselves in the texts defining the creation of the American presidency. We will trace our history to learn what and whom have complicated those original concepts, how they evolved, and whether a new way of thinking about the presidency should be considered.
Presidential historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jon Meacham returns to the Chautauqua Lecture Series to open the week and, more importantly, to launch Chautauqua’s 2024 Summer Assembly Season and the celebration of the Institution’s 150th anniversary, on Monday, June 24, 2024. On Tuesday, June 25, 2024, senior director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty & National Security Program Elizabeth Goitein examines the design and effectiveness of checks and balances among the three branches of government, and how the executive branch has historically interacted with the other two. Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House Chief of Staff to President George W. Bush, is the second-longest tenured White House Chief of Staff and has served in senior government roles under three U.S. Presidents; on Wednesday, June 26, 2024, he will share how he’s seen the presidency change in his career and lifetime, trace shifts in how Congress interacts with the Executive Branch, and consider how we might think differently about the presidency going forward. On Thursday, June 27, 2024, Melody Barnes, the executive director of Karsh Institute of Democracy at the University of Virginia and an alum of President Barack Obama’s administration, will offer her insights into how the power and authority vested in the presidency and executive branch touch the everyday lives of Americans. Finally, David French, opinion columnist for The New York Times, returns to Chautauqua to close the week on Friday, June 28, 2024, offering reflections on the symbolism of the U.S. presidency, and the significance of the U.S. president as a world and moral leader — how the presidency has evolved in these contexts over time, and how presidents have differed on their conception of the role.
Confirmed Lectures
Jon Meacham
Presidential historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jon Meacham is one of America’s most prominent public intellectuals, and he returns to the Chautauqua Lecture Series to open a week dedicated to tracing “The Evolution of the Modern Presidency” and, more importantly, to launch Chautauqua’s 2024 Summer Assembly Season and the celebration of the Institution’s 150th anniversary. With a depth of knowledge about politics, history, religion and current affairs, Meacham brings historical context to the issues and events impacting our daily lives.
The author of several No. 1 New York Times bestsellers, Meacham has written acclaimed books about America’s history and her presidents, including Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush (Meacham delivered eulogies for both President George H.W. Bush and First Lady Barbara Bush); American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation; and American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2009. His latest New York Times bestseller, And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle, was published in October 2022.
Meacham is a contributing editor at Time, a former executive editor and executive vice president at Random House, and served as Newsweek’s managing editor from 1998 to 2006 and editor from 2006 to 2010. Since 2021, he has served as the Canon Historian of the Washington National Cathedral.
A member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a fellow of the Society of American Historians, Meacham is a distinguished visiting professor at Vanderbilt University, where he holds the Rogers Chair in the American Presidency. He is a graduate of The University of the South, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in English.
Elizabeth Goitein
Elizabeth Goitein is senior director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty & National Security Program, which seeks to advance effective national security policies that respect constitutional values and the rule of law. A nationally-recognized expert on presidential emergency powers, government surveillance, and government secrecy, Goitein joins the Chautauqua Lecture Series during a week on “The Evolution of the Modern Presidency” to discuss the design and effectiveness of checks and balances among the three branches of government in the context of presidential emergency powers.
Goitein’s writing has been featured in newspapers and magazines including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, Foreign Affairs and The New Republic, and she has appeared frequently on MSNBC, CNN, and NPR; she is also the author of several book chapters. She has testified on several occasions before the Senate and House Judiciary Committees.
Before coming to the Brennan Center, Goitein served as counsel to U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold, chairman of the Constitution Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and as a trial attorney in the Federal Programs Branch of the Civil Division of the Department of Justice. In 2021–22, she was a member of the inaugural class of Senior Practitioner Fellows at the University of Chicago’s Center for Effective Government.
Goitein graduated from Yale Law School and clerked for the Honorable Michael Daly Hawkins on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Andrew H. Card Jr.
Andrew H. Card Jr. is the second-longest tenured White House Chief of Staff and has served in senior government roles under three U.S. Presidents. It is this decades-long experience that Card will draw on for the Chautauqua Lecture Series week on “The Evolution of the Modern Presidency” as he shares how he’s seen the presidency change in his career and lifetime, traces shifts in how Congress interacts with the Executive Branch, and considers how we might think differently about the presidency going forward.
Card served as chief of staff to President George W. Bush from January 2001 to April 2006. In this capacity, in 2001, he led a government-wide reorganization to best allocate resources to deal with the aftermath of 9/11 and the new terrorist environment. Prior to that, he served as deputy chief of staff and then as a cabinet member for President George H.W. Bush as the 11th Secretary of Transportation, directing President Bush’s transition office during the transition from the Bush Administration to the Clinton Administration. Card also served as special assistant and later as deputy assistant to the president and director of intergovernmental affairs for President Ronald Reagan.
Since the White House, Card has been chairman of the National Endowment for Democracy; interim chief executive officer of the George & Barbara Bush Foundation; president of Franklin Pierce University; executive director of the Office of the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at Texas A&M University; and acting dean of The Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M.
Card is a graduate of the University of South Carolina, and attended the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He served in the U.S. Navy from 1965 to 1967.
Melody Barnes
As the founding executive director of the University of Virginia’s Karsh Institute of Democracy, Melody Barnes guides the organization on an action-oriented path to realizing democracy in both principle and practice. A public servant with more than 25 years of experience crafting public policy, Barnes served in the administration of President Barack Obama as assistant to the president and director of the White House Domestic Policy Council. It is this experience she will draw on during the Chautauqua Lecture Series week on “The Evolution of the Modern Presidency,” offering insight into how the power and authority vested in the presidency and executive branch touch the everyday lives of Americans.
Earlier in her career, Barnes was executive vice president for policy at the Center for American Progress and chief counsel to the late Sen. Ted Kennedy on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. Her experience includes an appointment as director of legislative affairs for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and assistant counsel to the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights. Barnes started her career in New York as an associate at Shearman & Sterling.
In addition to her role at the Karsh Institute, Barnes is the J. Wilson Newman Professor of Governance at UVA’s Miller Center of Public Affairs, a distinguished fellow at UVA’s School of Law, and co-founder of the domestic-policy strategy firm MB2 Solutions. She is also the W.L. Lyons Brown Family Director for Policy and Public Engagement at the Democracy Initiative, an interdisciplinary teaching, research, and engagement effort led by the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences at UVA.
Barnes earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she graduated with honors in history, and her JD from the University of Michigan.
David French
David French is an opinion columnist for The New York Times, where he writes about law, culture, religion, and armed conflict. He was previously a senior editor at The Dispatch, a contributing writer at The Atlantic, a columnist at Time and a senior writer at National Review. Closing the Chautauqua Lecture Series theme on “The Evolution of the Modern Presidency,” he returns to the Amphitheater stage to offer reflections on the symbolism of the U.S. presidency, and the significance of the U.S. president as a world and moral leader — how the presidency has evolved in these contexts over time, and how presidents have differed on their conception of the role.
French is a former constitutional litigator, past president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, and a New York Times bestselling author. His most recent book is Divided We Fall: America’s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation, in which he warns of the potential dangers to the country — and the world — if we don’t summon the courage to reconcile our political differences.
A graduate of Harvard Law School, French is a former major in the United States Army Reserve and a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, where he was awarded the Bronze Star.
Interfaith Lecture Series
Race and the American Religious Experience
Race remains a primary dividing line in American society. Religious practice can serve to reinforce those divisions, or to break them down and unite people around shared commitments. How does race intersect with American religious experience across traditions individually and at both the communal and the institutional level? What can we learn about religion through a lens focused on racial inequity, and what can we learn about the construction of race from an examination of religious history and sociology? What insights can religion offer for racial reconciliation and social transformation?
Ilana Kaufman
Ilana Kaufman’s work sits at the center of Jewish community, racial equity, and justice, is anchored by the voices and experience of Jews of Color, and is focused on grantmaking, research and field building, and community education. As a guest on NPR’s All Things Considered and Code Switch, with pieces featured in eJewish Philanthropy and The Foundation Review, and an Eli Talk titled “Who Counts, Race and the Jewish Future” with 45,000 views, Ilana is passionate about all things at the intersection of Jewish community, racial justice, Jews of Color, education, and philanthropy. Ilana was previously the Public Affairs and Civic Engagement Director, East Bay for the San Francisco, Bay Area Jewish Community Relations Council. A Senior Schusterman Fellow who is always searching Jewish text for discussion of equity and justice, Ilana received her B.A. in Sociology from California State University-Humboldt and her M.A. in Educational Pedagogy from Mills College.
Sahar Aziz
Sahar Aziz is Distinguished Professor of Law, Chancellor’s Social Justice Scholar, and Middle East and Legal Studies Scholar at Rutgers University Law School. Her scholarship adopts an interdisciplinary approach to examine intersections of national security, race, and civil rights with a focus on the adverse impact of national security laws and policies on racial, ethnic, and religious minorities in the U.S. Her research also investigates the relationship between authoritarianism, terrorism, and rule of law in the Middle East. She is the founding director of the interdisciplinary Rutgers Center for Security, Race, and Rights (csrr.rutgers.edu) and a faculty affiliate of the African American Studies Department at Rutgers University-Newark. She serves on the Rutgers-Newark Chancellor’s Commission on Diversity and Transformation as well as the editorial board of the Arab Law Quarterly and the International Journal of Middle East Studies. Sge teaches courses on national security, critical race theory, Islamophobia, evidence, torts, and Middle East law.
Sahar’s groundbreaking book The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes Religious Freedom examines how religious bigotry racializes immigrant Muslims through a historical and comparative approach. She has published over thirty academic articles and book chapters. Her articles have been published in the Harvard National Security Journal, Washington and Lee Law Review, Nebraska Law Review, George Washington International Law Review, Penn State Law Review, and the Texas Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Journal.
Sahar’s commentary has appeared in the New York Times, CNN.com, Carnegie Endowment’s Sada Journal, Middle East Institute, Foxnews.com, World Politics Review, Houston Chronicle, Austin Statesmen, The Guardian, and Christian Science Monitor. She is a frequent public speaker and has appeared on CNN, BBC World, PBS, CSPAN, MSNBC, Fox News, and Al Jazeera English. She is an editor of the Race and the Law Profs blog. She previously served on the board of the ACLU of Texas and as a nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution – Doha.
Sahar earned a J.D. and M.A. in Middle East Studies from the University of Texas where she was as an associate editor of the Texas Law Review. Sahar clerked for the Honorable Andre M. Davis on the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland.
PJ Andrews
PJ Andrews co-coordinates the U.S. Bahá’í Office of Public Affairs’ collaboration with individuals, organizations, and agencies in the U.S. engaged in public discourses and policy advocacy directed toward racial justice and racial unity. Prior to joining the office in 2017, PJ worked in ethical culture development for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), in government relations for national service programs with AmeriCorps, as a case manager for U.S. Congressman Chris Van Hollen, and supported the work of the International Teaching Centre at the World Center of the Bahá’í Faith in Haifa, Israel. PJ holds a M.Ed. in Human Development and Psychology from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a B.A. in American Studies from Tufts University. PJ lives in Washington, DC with his wife and daughter where he enjoys biking and accompanying young people in his neighborhood find meaningful paths of service in the community.
George Yancey
Dr. George Yancey is a Professor at the Institute for Studies of Religion and Sociology at Baylor University. He has published several research articles on the topics of institutional racial diversity, racial identity, atheism, cultural progressivism, and academic bias. His books include Compromising Scholarship (Baylor University Press), a book that explores religious and political biases in academia; There is no God (Rowman and Littlefield) a book that assesses atheism in the United States; One Faith No More: The Transformation of Christianity in Red and Blue America (New York University Press), which examines the schism between conservative and progressive Christians; and a book currently under contract, The Antiracists: Understanding Progressive Racial Activism (Temple University Press), which explores antiracist ideology.
Robert P. Jones
Robert P. Jones is the president and founder of Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI). He is the author of The New York Times bestselling book, The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy and the Path to a Shared American Future. Jones writes regularly on politics, culture, and religion for The Atlantic, TIME, Religion News Service, and other outlets. He is frequently featured in major national media, such as CNN, MSNBC, NPR, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and others. He is also the author of White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity, which won a 2021 American Book Award; and author of The End of White Christian America, which won the 2019 Grawemeyer Award in Religion. Jones writes weekly at https://robertpjones.substack.com, a newsletter for those dedicated to the work of truth-telling, repair, and healing from the legacy of white supremacy in American Christianity.
He holds a Ph.D. in religion from Emory University, an M.Div. from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and a B.S. in computing science and mathematics from Mississippi College. Jones was selected by Emory University’s Graduate Division of Religion as Distinguished Alumnus of the Year in 2013, and by Mississippi College’s Mathematics Department as Alumnus of the Year in 2016. Jones serves on the national program committee for the American Academy of Religion and is a past member of the editorial boards for the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, and Politics and Religion, a journal of the American Political Science Association.
Before founding PRRI, Jones worked as a consultant and senior research fellow at several think tanks in Washington, D.C., and was an assistant professor of religious studies at Missouri State University.
Weekly Chaplain
The Rev. Gregory Boyle, S.J.
Father Gregory Boyle is the founder of Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles, the largest gang-intervention, rehabilitation, and re-entry program in the world.
Born and raised in Los Angeles and Jesuit priest, from 1986 to 1992 Fr. Boyle served as pastor of Dolores Mission Church in Boyle Heights. Dolores Mission was the poorest Catholic parish in Los Angeles that also had the highest concentration of gang activity in the city.
Explore Performing and Visual Arts
The arts can sometimes bridge differences and illuminate perspectives as no other method can. Artistic expressions at Chautauqua — including professional and pre-professional offerings in classical and contemporary music, theater, opera, dance, visual arts and literary arts — aim to inspire, educate, entertain and engage a diverse and growing audience.
Places to Stay
If you love the events you see in Week One, ensure you have accommodations. Space on the ground is limited, and accommodations go fast find reservations at the Hotel or Private Accommodations.
Dining & Shopping
Make your Chautauqua experience memorable! Share a delicious meal at one of our many restaurants. Or take piece of Chautauqua home with you from our unique shops.