Steve Ackerman

September 13, 2021: “Wisconsin’s Changing Climate”

Respondent: Jon Martin

​

Sandra Adell

September 11, 2023: “And Then The Casinos Came:  Casino Gambling, Black Women and Addict

​

R. Bruce Allison  

May 8, 2023: “The Role of Trees in Wisconsin’s Historical and Current Climate And Ecology, And Their Anticipated Future Role.”

​

Tian G. Andresen

April 11, 2022:  “Hot Times in Cold Places: Changing Arctic Processes”

​

Harvey Black

December 9, 2019: “Science Reporting: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly—More or Less”

Respondent:  Steve Paulson

​

Thomas Broman and Erika Janik

February 13, 2017: “How Does ‘Public History’ Reach its Public? The Case of Wisconsin 101”

​

Daniel Bromley

November 13, 2017: “Why Aldo Leopold Has Failed: Rescuing Environmentalism from Moral Obligations”

​

Joyce Bromley 

March 14, 2016: “Barriers to German Reunification”

Respondent: Sabine Gross

​

Joshua Calhoun

December 14, 2016: “Shakespeare’s First Folio”

Respondent: no commentator

​

Donna Carnes and Pauline Boss

September 12, 2016: “The Myth of Closure”

Respondent: no commentator

​

Robin Chapman

February 8, 2021: “Occupation Poet: Where Do Poems Come From?”

Respondent: Rita Mae Reese

​

Roseanne Clark

December 12, 2022:  “Mental Health and Early Relationships:  A New Public Health Agenda”

​

Jane Collins

December 10, 2018: “The Politics of Value”

Respondent: Michael Bell

​

Kate Corby

October 9, 2017: “From Idea to Embodiment: An Open Rehearsal and Peek into Contemporary Choreographic Processes”

​

Katherine Cramer

September 11, 2017: “The Politics of Resentment in the Contemporary United States”

​

David Daniel 

February 8, 2016: “An Interactive Evening of Poetry”

Respondent: Emily Auerbach and Donna Carnes

​

Samuel Dennis

February 12, 2018: “Landscape Design as Social and Cultural History: A Long View”

Respondent: Ann Smart Martin

​

Brenda DeVita

April 12, 2021: “The Play’s the Thing: Planning a Successful Season at American Players Theatre”

no respondent​

​

Jordan Ellenberg

May 9, 2016: “How Not to be Wrong: Why Math is Important”

​

Jo Estep

March 11, 2019: “Behind the Panels: An Examination of the Creation of Comics/Graphic Novels”

Respondent:  Amber Cohen

​

Nicole Fenske (substitute for Patrice Streicher)

September 17, 2018: “Functional Medicine”

Respondent: Jennifer Gurske​

​

Charles Franklin

October 10, 2022:  “2022 Mid-term Elections”

Respondent: Michael Wagner

​

November 10, 2014: “Understanding the Wisconsin Electorate of 2014”

Respondent: Jessie Opoien

​​​

Margaret George

February 11, 2019: “Fiddling Around with Nero, or, Fake News from Rome”

Respondent:  William Aylward

​

Norman Gilliland

May 11, 2020: “What Has Radio Done for Music?”

Respondent: Trevor Stephenson​

​

Amy Gilman

February 13, 2023:  “The Era of the Visionary Museum Director Is Over … or It Should Be”

​

Thomas J. Givnish

September 12, 2022:  “Assembly of Wisconsin Plant Communities at Regional to Local Sales”

​

Robert Graebner

April 9, 2018: “Walter Graebner: Time-Life London Bureau Chief and His Relationship with Winston Churchill”

Respondent: Gen. Lewis B. Harned​​​

​

Kevin Henkes

November 13, 2023:  “The Recent History And Current Golden Age Of Children’s Literature”

​

Ronnie Hess

March 9, 2020: “Duck Soup, Or the Fine Art and Science of Culinary/Food Writing”

Respondent: Grazia Menechella

​

Jack Holzhueter

May 13, 2019: “Aslak Lie: A Final Report on a Fifty-Year Obsession”

Respondent: Peter Thurlow

​

Tom Howe

September 9, 2019: “Waste, Salvation, and Melancholia: Unexpected Legacies of the American Civil War”

Respondent: Matt Blessing

​

Steven Kantrowitz

October 13, 2025: “How the Ho-Chunk Thwarted Removal from Wisconsin”

​

Len Kaplan

October 14, 2019: “Job: A Folksy Tale That Continues to Bite”

with Rob Czierwin, Andy Gricevich, and Jeffrey Rothstein

​

Kyle Knox

November 14, 2022:  “Why Music Matters”

​

Christopher Kolakowski

September 8, 2025: “’A World Profoundly Changed’ - The Globe After 1945”

​

Jim Lattis

December 8, 2025: “At the Frontiers of Astronomy: The History of Astronomy in Wisconsin”

 

May 10, 2021: “140 Years on the Frontiers: Washburn Observatory and the

Wisconsin Roots of Modern Astrophysics”

​

Bob Lindmeier

November 10, 2025: “Solving the Climate Crisis”

​

John Magnuson

April 14, 2025: “Lake Ice and the Loss of Winter”

​​

Ron McCrea

March 12, 2018: “Frank Lloyd Wright and the Contributions of Women”

Respondent: Anna Andrezjewski

​

Jim McKeown

February 10, 2020: “Ancient Medical Curiosities:  Strange Tales and Surprising Facts from the Health Arts of Greece and Rome”

Respondent: Hanna Golab​

​

Leonora Neville and Sarah Thal

April 3, 2017: “Songs from the Road not Taken: Amateur Reflections on Coloratura”

​

John Nichols

November 12, 2018: “Election Wrap-Up, Analysis and Implications”

Respondent: Laura Dresser

​

T. Michael Nork

March 14, 2022:  “Color My World: What Color Vision Teaches Us About Genetics, Eye Disease and Evolution”

Respondent: Dr. James N. Ver Hoeve, PhD

​

Kirill Osopovat

April 10, 2023:  “The history of Russian popular attitudes toward authoritarianism and how those attitudes are reflected in 19th and 20th century Russian literature.”

​

Martha Greene Phillips

May 14, 2018: “Border Country”

Respondent: Stanley Temple

​

Joseph (Jay) Ranney

March 13, 2023: “Bridging Revolutions:  A Southern Judge Who Took On Slavery, the Confederacy and the Ku Klux Klan”

Respondent: Prof. John Hall

​

April 8, 2019: “A New Birth of Freedom?’ Wisconsin and the Age of Expressive Individualism”

Respondent: Dean Strang

​

Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen

July 13, 2020 (rescheduled from April 13): “The Ideas that Made America: A Brief History”

Respondent: Charles Cohen

​

Jim Reardon

March 10, 2025: “The Limits of Human Performance in Distance Racing”

​

Rita Mae Reese

May 9, 2022:  “Poetry as Vaccine”

Respondent: Jodi Vander Molen

​

Sue Riseling

November 11, 2019, “The Challenge of Protecting the University”

Respondent: Kristen Roman

​

Chan Stroman Roll

April 8, 2024: "Meet John Doe: the Pursuit of Open Records for Open Government."

Respondent: Bill Lueders 

​

Veronica Rueckert

September 14, 2020: “Outspoken:  Why Women’s Voices Get Silenced and How to Set Them Free”

Respondent: Mary Lang Sollinger

​

Bonnie Saari & Steve Head

February 10, 2025: “A Midwesterner's Adventures in Middle Eastern Dance & Music”

​

John Schaffer

October 8, 2018: “So, What Exactly IS Jazz Anyway?”

Respondent: Johannes Wallman

​

Sarah Schaffer

October 10, 2016: “From Poem to Song: How Variant Musical Settings Offer Interpretive Insights”

Respondent: Robin Chapman​

​

Michael Schuler

November 9, 2020: “Whither Humanism? A Brief Survey of its Religious and Cultural Despisers”

Respondent: Michael May​

​

Nick Schweitzer

November 8, 2021: “The Last Freie Gemeinde?”

​

Dan Shea

October 12, 2020: “Thoughts on Opera in Madison Since the 1960s”

Respondent: Karlos Moser

​

Janice Sheppard

March 8, 2021: “My Time in Prison: The Spiritual Path into and Out of Prison”

​

Cherene Sherrard-Johnson

December 14, 2020: “Mapping Blackness: An Intimate
Cartography”

Respondent: Dr. Ethelene Whitmire​

​

Scott Spoolman

October 11, 2021: “Wisconsin's Extraordinary Stories of Geology and Natural History”

​

Clint Sprott

December 13, 2021: “Self-organization: Nature's Intelligent Design”

​

Trevor Stephenson

December 11, 2017: “Chopin and Debussy on a Mid-Nineteenth-Century Viennese Piano: Trevor Stephenson Discusses the Sound World of an 1855 Bösendorfer Grand”

Respondent: Norman Sheppard​

​

Dean Strang

October 9, 2023:  “Why Injustice Trumps Justice—and Why Understanding That Matters”

​

Olga and Vadimir Trubetskoy

March 13, 2017: “Mikhail Tsvet and His Discovery of Chromatography, a ‘process that separates molecules but unites people’”

​

 Andrée Valley

February 14, 2022:  “The Venice Biennale Before and During the Pandemic: An Exhibitor’s Perspective “
Respondent: Paula Panczenko ​

​

John Voegeli

May 12, 2025: “A Primordial Connection of Earth, God and Sky” (Effigy Moundbuilders)

​

Michael Wagner

November 14, 2016: “Wrap-up Analysis of the 2016 Elections”

​

Craig Werner and Doug Bradley

May 8, 2017: “‘We Gotta Get Out of This Place’: The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War”

​

Note: Complete lists of essays and essayists and entertainers of the Club, as well as of members and officers from 1877 to 1977, will be found in The Semi-Centennial Book of the Madison Literary Club, 1877-1927, and in The Centennial Book of the Madison Literary Club, 1977. Essays are held by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin.