Every year since 1994, a prominent, internationally renowned intellectual is invited to give the Nexus Lecture, presenting his or her views on a theme of cultural philosophy relating to present-day Europe. The Lectures are held in English.

Each lecture is published in our journal Nexus, in Dutch though. Two exceptions: the lecture 2003 by George Steiner is available in book form as The Idea of Europe., as well as the lecture 2007 by Sonia Gandhi, Living Politics, What India has taught me. The books can be ordered through the following form: Nexus Library.

 

2011 Ismail Serageldin Knowledge and Memory in Alexandria A Bridge between Islam and Europe

2010 Daniel Barenboim The Ethics of Aesthetics

2009 Robert Hughes A Defence of What is Priceless

2008 Jürgen Habermas The Post-Secular Society. What does it mean?

2007 Sonia Gandhi Living Politics. What India has taught me

2006 Janos Starker 'What is a Masterpiece?'

2005 Francis Fukuyama 'The Future of Democracy. Culture and Immigration'

2004 Avishai Margalit 'Occidentalism. The West in the Eyes of its Enemies'

2003 George Steiner 'The Idea of Europe'

2002 Carlo Ginzburg 'Latitude, Slaves and the Bible. A Local Approach to Globalization'

2001 Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke 'The American Stake in Europe, the European Stake in the United States'

2000 Michael Ignatieff 'An Age of Bad Faith'

1999 Elisabeth Mann Borgese 'The Years of My Life'

1998 Adam Zagajewski 'The Shabby and the Sublime. Or: Is High Diction Possible In a Low Environment?'

1997 Claudio Magris 'Soll man die Dichter aus dem Staat verbannen? Vom Nutzen und Nachteil der Literatur.'

1996 Richard von Weizsäcker 'Zur Kultur der europaeischen Vereinigung'

1995 Amartya K. Sen 'Environmental Threaths and Economic Reasoning'

1994 Edward W. Said 'Retrospective Thoughts on Orientalism'