Marilynne Robinson

Marilynne Robinson

For the acclaimed author Marilynne Robinson, religion is one of the most profound aspects of American life. As such, religious themes inform much of her fiction and nonfiction. She is currently completing a book on the Old Testament; her lectures this November will offer the Washington University community a glimpse of her thinking on the Hebrew Bible.

Tarana Burke

Tarana Burke

It may seem as though the #metoo hashtag campaign came out of nowhere; in fact, it was 25 years in the making, built on the back of Tarana Burke’s lifelong dedication to developing support structures for young women of color who survived sexual violence. Burke was lifted from relative obscurity at the January 2018 broadcast of the Golden Globe Awards when she joined actresses Michelle Williams and Reese Witherspoon on stage to announce the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund for victims of sexual violence and inequality in the workplace.

Stephen H. Legomsky

Stephen H. Legomsky

Legomsky’s law school text, “Immigration and Refugee Law and Policy,” has been the required text at 185 law schools. He is frequently called upon by governments and the media to weigh in on policies that affect immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. The former WashU law school professor — who has enjoyed emeritus status since retiring in 2015 — has appeared before Congress on a number of occasions, most recently before the House and the Senate Judiciary committees on the legality of President Barack Obama’s immigration executive actions.

Robert Sagastume

Robert Sagastume

Robert Sagastume’s journey, from arriving in America as an adolescent on a visa, to becoming undocumented, to receiving rights under the DACA law, and finally, obtaining a green card, illustrates the challenging plight of children caught in America’s immigration morass through no fault of their own.

Nicole T.S. Cortes

Nicole T.S. Cortes

Nicole Cortes got her first glimpse into the St. Louis Latino community as an undergraduate, and in doing so, discovered that there weren’t many Spanish-speaking lawyers around.

Katie Herbert Meyer

Katie Herbert Meyer

Even before the U.S. imposed new restrictions for asylum seekers and refugees, the path to citizenship or legal residency for immigrants has been circuitous at best; there is no “line” to get in legally. Even those who enter our country legally find their future and safety are anything but guaranteed, with the resulting need for attorneys with experience in this field. To make matters worse, immigrants often do not have the means to retain a lawyer.

Karen Musalo

Karen Musalo

In addition to her pro bono legal advocacy, Musalo teaches international law at the University of California Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco; she also directs the institution’s Center for Gender & Refugee Studies as well as its Human Rights Clinic.

Qiu Xiaolong

Qiu Xiaolong

Novelist and filmmaker Dai was born in Chengdu, Sichuan in 1954. He moved to France in 1984 on a scholarship to study art, then turned to filmmaking. Before writing “Balzac,” in French, he made three critically-acclaimed films.

Christine Van den Wyngaert

Christine Van den Wyngaert

For her dedication as a judge, Van den Wyngaert, a native of Antwerp, Belgium, was ennobled in 2013 as a baroness by King Albert II of Belgium.

Victor LaValle

Victor LaValle

In addition to the 2018 comic book, LaValle has published four novels: “The Ecstatic;” “Big Machine;” “The Devil in Silver;” and “The Changeling;” two novellas: “Lucretia and the Kroons” and “The Ballad of Black Tom;” and the short story collection, “Slapboxing with Jesus.” His numerous awards include the Whiting Writers’ Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, a United States Artists Ford Fellowship, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Luke Dittrich

Luke Dittrich

Before joining Esquire and The New York Times Magazine as a contributing editor, Dittrich wrote for Atlanta magazine, The Oxford American, and Egypt Today. In 2012, he won the National Magazine Award for Feature Writing for his Esquire story covering the Joplin, Missouri tornado.

Sue Vice

Sue Vice

One of the many research interests of Sue Vice, who teaches contemporary literature, literary theory, culture, and film at the University of Sheffield, is the representation of the Holocaust. As this year’s Holocaust Memorial Lecturer, Vice will draw on her extensive knowledge of the varied forms of Holocaust literature and film that have entered the public realm, and discuss what the most recent examples suggest about Holocaust memory today.