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Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture Series

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To access this page directly, you may use the following URL: http://www.generalsemantics.org/akml

History

In 1952, two years after founder Alfred Korzbyski’s sudden death, Institute of General Semantics Director M. Kendig initiated an annual program to remember Korzybski and celebrate the continuation of his goals for human development and progress.

This program became known as the Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture series, known familiarly as “The AKML.” Kendig viewed this series as a means not only to remember Korzybski, but also to celebrate the contributions of those whose work is scientifically oriented and promotes what Korzybski termed “time-binding,” the unique human ability to build on the achievements of others through the use of symbols and languages.

Previous Lecturers

An impressive lineup of speakers has added significant prestige to AKML, which over the years has featured prominent authors, scientists, psychologists, educators, and individuals from varied backgrounds. A few of the more recognizable names include Abraham Maslow, Buckminster Fuller, Dr. Albert Ellis, Steve Allen, Leonard Shlain, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Lou Marinoff, Ellen Langer, Dr. J. Allan Hobson, Robert Carneiro, James Van Allen, Karl H. Pribram, Sherry Turkle, and others.

A complete list of speakers, along with links to transcripts of their presentations and, where available, audio and video recordings, is available below.

The listed affiliations for each speaker were current on the date of the lecture and may have since changed.

2012

SHAWN LAWRENCE OTTO

  • Science advocate, humanitarian, and screenwriter
  • Author of Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America.

2011

SHERRY TURKLE

  • Abby Rockefeller Mauze Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • Author of Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other.

2010

DEBORAH TANNEN

  • University Professor and Professor of Linguistics at Georgetown University.
  • Author of many books and articles about how the language of everyday conversation affects relationships, including You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation (New York Times Best Seller).

2009

MARY CATHERINE BATESON

  • President of the Institute for Intercultural Studies.
  • Author of eleven books including Full Circles, Overlapping Lives: Culture and Generation in Transition; With A Daughter’s Eye: A Memoir of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson; and most recently, Willing to Learn: Passages of Personal Discovery.

2008

DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF

  • Teacher and documentarian.
  • Author of Screenagers, host of Frontline’s The Persuaders.
  • Read the Lecture
  • Listen to the Lecture:

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2007

LEONARD SHLAIN, M.D.

  • Chairman of Laparoscopic Surgery at the California Pacific Medical Center.
  • Author of The Alphabet Versus The Goddess, Art & Physics, and Sex, Time & Power.
  • Read the Lecture

2006

RENEE HOBBS

  • Director, Media Education Lab, Temple University.
  • Founder of the Alliance for a Media Literate America (AMLA).
  • Author of Reading the Media.
  • Read the Lecture

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  • Watch the Lecture (.wmv)

2005

ROBERT L. CARNEIRO

  • Curator, Anthropology Division, American Museum of Natural History.
  • Author of Evolutionism in Cultural Anthropology and The Muse of History and the Science of Culture.
  • Read the Lecture

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2003

SANFORD I. BERMAN

  • Motivational speaker and nightclub hypnotist.
  • Student of Dr. Irving J. Lee.
  • Long-time supporter of general semantics.
  • Editor of Logic and General Semantics and author of Words, Meanings and People.
  • Read the Lecture

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2002

J. ALLAN HOBSON, M.D.

  • Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.
  • Director of the Laboratory of Neurophysiology at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center.
  • Author of The Dreaming Brain, Sleep, Dreaming as Delirium, and, with Jonathan A. Leonard, Out of its Mind: Psychiatry in Crisis: a Call for Reform.
  • Read the Lecture

2001

LOU MARINOFF

  • Chair of Philosophy, City College of New York.
  • Founding President of the American Philosophical Practitioners Association.
  • Author of Plato, Not Prozac!
  • Read the Lecture

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2000

ROBERT P. PULA

  • Director Emeritus, Institute of General Semantics.
  • Author of A General-Semantics Glossary.
  • Read the Lecture

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1999

ELLEN J. LANGER

  • Professor of Psychology, Harvard University.
  • Author of Mindfulness and The Power of Mindful Learning.
  • Read the Lecture

1998

THEODORE R. SIZER

  • Educator and author of Horace’s Hope, Horace’s School, and Horace’s Compromise.
  • Read the Lecture

1997

ROBERT ANTON WILSON

  • Author of The Illuminatus Trilogy and Prometheus Rising.
  • Read the Lecture

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1996

MIHALY CSIKSZENTMIHALYI

  • Professor of Human Development, University of Chicago.
  • Author of Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience and Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention.
  • Read the Lecture

1995

NICHOLAS JOHNSON

  • Former Commissioner, Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
  • Professor of Law, University of Iowa College of Law.
  • Son of Dr. Wendell Johnson, the author of the popular general semantics text People in Quandaries.
  • Read the Lecture

1994

LOTFI A. ZADEH

  • Professor Emeritus and Director of the Berkeley Initiative in Soft Computing.
  • Known for his contributions to machine intelligence, particularly through “Fuzzy Logic.”
  • Read the Lecture

1993

WILLIAM LUTZ

  • Professor of English and Director of the English Graduate Program at Rutgers University, Camden, New Jersey.
  • Author and “doublespeak” authority.
  • Read the Lecture

1992

STEVE ALLEN

  • Author, entertainer, songwriter.
  • Creator of NBC’s Tonight Show.
  • Read the Lecture

1991

ALBERT ELLIS

1990

WARREN M. ROBBINS

  • Founder, Director Emeritus and Senior Scholar, Smithsonian National Museum of African Art.
  • Read the Lecture

1989

WILLIAM V. HANEY

  • Educator and author.
  • Authority on interpersonal communication.
  • Read the Lecture

1988

JEROME BRUNER

1987

RICHARD W. PAUL

  • Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for Critical Thinking and Moral Critique, Sonoma State University, California.
  • Read the Lecture

1986

GEORGE F.F. LOMBARD

  • Louis E. Kirstein Professor Emeritus of Human Relations and former Associate Dean of the Graduate School of Business, Harvard University.
  • Read the Lecture

1985

RUSSELL MEYERS, M.D.
(See also AKML 1958)

1984

KARL H. PRIBRAM

1983

ALLEN WALKER READ

  • Emeritus Professor of English, Columbia University.
  • Read the Lecture

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1982

Co-Presenters: ROBERT R. BLAKE & JANE SRYGLEY MOUTON

ROBERT R. BLAKE

  • President , Scientific Methods, Inc. Now Grid International, Inc.

JANE SRYGLEY MOUTON

  • Vice President, Scientific Methods, Inc. Now Grid International, Inc.

1981

THOMAS SEBEOK

  • Distinguished Professor of Linguistics and Semiotics, Indiana University.
  • Read the Lecture

1980

BARBARA MORGAN

1979

DON FABUN

  • Author and lecturer.
  • Formerly Director of Publications, Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical Corporation.
  • Author of Communications: The Transfer of Meaning.
  • Read the Lecture

1978

ELWOOD MURRAY

  • Emeritus Professor of Speech Communication, University of Denver.
  • Read the Lecture

1977

BEN BOVA

  • Author and Editor of Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact Magazine.
  • Read the Lecture

1976

ROGER W. WESCOTT

1975

HARLEY C. SHANDS, M.D.

  • Director, Department of Psychiatry, Roosevelt Hospital, New York.
  • Read the Lecture

1974

Co-Presenters: KENNETH G. JOHNSON & NEIL POSTMAN

KENNETH G. JOHNSON

  • Professor of Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

NEIL POSTMAN

  • Professor of Media Ecology, New York University.
  • Author of numerous books on media and culture.

1973

Panel: “General Semantics: Whence 1920…Where 1973…Whither”

with

J. SAMUEL BOIS

  • Viewpoints Institute, Los Angeles. Author of The Art of Awareness.

ELTON S. CARTER

  • Dean for Graduate Studies, University of Nebraska.

WALTER PROBERT

  • Professor of Law, University of Florida, Gainesville.

1972

GEORGE STEINER

  • Extraordinary Fellow, Cambridge University.
  • Internationally-known writer, scholar, literary critic and analyst of culture.

1971

HENRY MARGENAU

  • Professor of Physics and Natural Philosophy, Yale University.
  • Read the Lecture

1970

GREGORY BATESON

  • Associate Director for Research, Oceanic Institute, Waimanalo, Hawaii.
  • Read the Lecture

1969

LANCELOT LAW WHYTE

  • Pioneering scientist-philosopher, lecturer, and author of The Next Development of Man, The Unconscious Before Freud, and The Unitary Principle in Physics and Biology.
  • Read the Lecture

1968

ALASTAIR M. TAYLOR

  • Professor of Political Studies and Geography, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario.
  • President of the Canadian Association for American Studies.
  • Read the Lecture

1967

J. BRONOWSKI

1966

ALVIN M. WEINBERG

  • Physicist.
  • Director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
  • Read the Lecture

1965

HENRY LEE SMITH, Jr.

  • Professor of Linguistics and English, Chairman, Department of Anthropology and Linguistics, State University of New York at Buffalo.
  • Read the Lecture

1964

JOOST A. M. MEERLOO, M.D.

  • Psychiatrist and psychoanalyst.
  • Associate Professor of Psychiatry, New York School of Psychiatry.
  • Read the Lecture

1963

HENRI LABORIT, M.D.

  • Chief of Research of the Health Services of the Armies of France.
  • Director of Physio-Biological Research and Physician-in-Chief of the National Navy.
  • American Public Health Associations’ Albert Lasker Award, 1957.
  • Read the Lecture

1962

HAROLD G. CASSIDY

  • Professor of Chemistry, Yale University.
  • Author of The Sciences and the Arts: A New Alliance.
  • Read the Lecture

1961

ROBERT R. BLAKE

  • Professor of Psychology, University of Texas.
  • Author of The Managerial Grid and co-founder of Managerial Grid Theory.
  • Read the Lecture

1960

WARREN S. MCCULLOCH, M.D.

  • Research Laboratory of Electronics, M.I.T.
  • Author of Finality and Form.
  • Read the Lecture

1959

Symposium: “Extending the Parabola”

with

CHARLES M. POMERAT

  • Professor of Cytology and Director of the Tissue Culture Laboratory, University of Texas, Galveston.

WILLIAM J. FRY

  • Research Professor of Physics and Director of Biophysical Research Laboratory, University of Illinois.

JAMES A. VAN ALLEN

  • Professor and Head, Department of Physics, State University of Iowa.

1958

RUSSELL MEYERS, M.D.
(see also 1985)

  • Professor of Surgery, College of Medicine, State University of Iowa.
  • Chairman of Division of Neurosurgery, University of Iowa Hospitals.
  • Author of “Preface to the 4th edition of Science and Sanity.”
  • Read the Lecture

1957

ABRAHAM MASLOW

  • Professor of Psychology, Brandeis.
  • Author of Motivation and Personality.
  • Read the Lecture

1956

CLYDE KLUCKHOHN

  • Professor of Anthropology, Harvard University.
  • Author of Mirror for Man and What is Science?
  • Read the Lecture

1955

R. BUCKMINSTER FULLER

  • Distinguished engineer, mathematician, inventor, designer, mechanic, writer and philosopher.
  • Author of Nine Chains to the Moon and Dymaxion Air-Ocean World Map.

1954

F. S. C. NORTHROP

  • Professor of Philosophy and Law, Yale University.
  • Author of The Meeting of East and West and The Logic of the Sciences and Humanities.
  • Read the Lecture

1953

F. J. ROETHLISBERGER

  • Professor of Human Relations, Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration.
  • Author of Management and Morale.
  • Read the Lecture

1952

Co-Presenters: WILLIAM VOGT & M.F. ASHLEY MONTAGU

WILLIAM VOGT

  • Author of Road to Survival.
  • National Director of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America;
  • Read the Lecture

M.F. ASHLEY MONTAGU

  • Professor of Anthropology, Rutgers University
  • Author of On Being Human and Statement on Race.
  • Read the Lecture
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