PREVIEW of upcoming speakers and guests

Monday, January 18 (in the Fieldhouse) Garrison Keillor with Roland Flint “An Abecedary of Poetry” Tuesday, January 19 Michael R. Beschloss “Presidents in Trouble: What Does History Tell Us?” Wednesday, January 20 Barbara Dafoe Whitehead “When Father Disappears ...” Thursday, January 21 Kathleen Hall Jamieson “Spiral of Cynicism: the Press and the Public Good” Friday, January 22 Valentina Lisitsa & Alexei Kuznetsoff Duo pianists (Additional Lisitsa-Kuznetsoff performance at 8 p.m. on Friday, tickets required) Student sections are located in the Balcony and Mezzanine. Also, 1,000 seats are reserved for students in the Fieldhouse for the Garrison Keillor session on Monday, January 18.

He is a frequent contributor to “Time” magazine. Keillor also has a list of awards, including a Grammy Award for “A Prairie Home Companion,” two ACE Awards for cable TV, and a George Foster Peabody Award. Keillor has also been inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame at the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago.

Roland Flint

Roland Flint is the author of many books, including his latest collection of poems, “Easy,” which will be published this spring. He has conducted several poetry readings, including sessions at the Folger Shakespeare Theater, ABC-TV’s “Nightline,” and several colleges, now including Calvin. Flint has received many honors, including honorary degrees from N.C. Wesleyan College and his alma mater, the University of North Dakota.

Michael Beschloss

Newsweek magazine describes Michael Beschloss as “the nation’s leading presidential historian.” Beschloss has written five books, including most recently, “Taking Charge,” a national best-seller. He participates regularly in round-table discussions on “The News Hour with Jim Lehrer,” and appears frequently on most national television networks as a commentator and analyst. Unlike many historians, Beschloss has only a bachelor’s degree (from Harvard University), and not a Ph.D. However, Beschloss has been widely regarded as a presidential historian. His books have been translated across the globe and have earned him honors, including a nomination for New York Library’s Bernstein Prize. Beschloss has served in a variety of positions, including historian at the Smithsonian Institution, Senior Associate Member at St. Antony’s College, Oxford University, Visiting Scholar at the Harvard Russian Research Center, and Senior Fellow at the Annenberg Foundation. He currently serves on the boards of the White House Historical Association, Foreign Affairs Magazine, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Cold War History Project.

Kathleen Hall Jamieson

Political campaign analyst Kathleen Hall Jamieson is the author or co-author of nine books, including “Dirty Politics: Deception, Distraction and Democracy,” and “Packaging the Presidency,” which received the Speech Communication Association’s Golden Anniversary Book Award. Her most recent book is “Spiral of Cynicism: Press and Public Good.” One reviewer writes that the book “provides an eye-opening look at political ads and speeches, showing us how to read, listen to, and watch political campaigns.”

Jeff Greenfield of the New York Times said that “the book combines social science, journalism and commentary into a coherent argument about the way political advertising shapes ?and distorts ?public debate ....” During the 1996 general election she served as a commentator on debates for CBS News, “The News Hour with Jim Lehrer,” and on the discourse of the campaign for National Public Radio’s “Weekend Edition.”