The start of the semester is a time to reflect on the question: What is this all about? What are we up to at Providence College and in higher education in general? What do we seek and why? Renowned social critic Andrew Delbanco, keynote speaker at this year’s Academic Convocation, joined the Providence College Podcast to discuss these and other questions.

Andrew Delbanco, Ph.D., is Alexander Hamilton Professor of American Studies at Columbia University and president of the Teagle Foundation, which advocates for education in the liberal arts. He recently delivered the 2022 Jefferson Lecture, considered the highest honor the federal government confers for distinguished intellectual achievement in the humanities.

A National Humanities Medal winner, Delbanco’s scholarship confronts existential questions posed in classic American literature and lived in the American experience. He studies the forces that, in their convergence, created and continue to create America as we know it: morality, economics, law, race, spirituality, hope, and more. His work bridges past and present, showing the genesis of present realities taken for granted and probing those realities with voices and ideas from the American literary tradition.

Subscribe to the Providence College Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play, and YouTube.  Visit Providence College on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, and LinkedIn.