On Tuesday evening, November 12th, 150 attended a lecture in Alkek Teaching Theater by the New York Times’ Tom Ricks, a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting. Ricks’ talk explored George Orwell’s famous essay on politics and the English language and the common ground that united Orwell and Winston Churchill. Although occupying very different positions on the political spectrum, Orwell and Churchill shared a common commitment to individual freedom and a common hostility to modern totalitarianism. Prior to the lecture, students had an opportunity to win departmental swag by competing in a trivia contest on Orwell’s article. At the conclusion of his talk, Ricks fielded questions from the audience and later spoke with several students individually.
Earlier in the day, Ricks spoke to Dr. Menchaca-Bagnulo’s American Political Thought class, as well as to a history and mass communication class. He also had lunch with faculty and students from the department.
Political science major Zachary Poston noted that Ricks’ talk “offered unique insights” into two of the most “inspiring figures of the twentieth century,” while another undergraduate major, Ariel Long, was struck by the light the talk cast on contemporary issues such as “fake news.”
