The Lind Initiative
The Lind Initiative brings prominent thinkers, artists, and political leaders to confront the most pressing issues of our time.
Lind Initiative 2027
The return of Donald Trump to the White House has been described as a rupture – from democratic norms, from the post-war alliance system, from established economic models, and from the rules-based international order the United States itself built. Historians remind us, however, the pressures at play in this political moment are not new.
This year’s theme, Rupture, asks whether the fractures now visible in democratic life are true breaks with the past or the resurfacing of older patterns. Sweeping Democratic gains in the midterms add a new dimension to that question: whether the last decade marks a lasting shift in American politics, or a chapter that is already turning.
It critically interrogates the forces at work in this moment, including the erosion of public trust, the rise of artificial intelligence, a new era of wealth inequality, and the strains on democratic institutions. It asks what is genuinely broken, and what has merely been revealed? What can be repaired, and what is already beyond recovery? And, importantly, what does this moment demand of us?
The speaker line-up will be announced in November 2026.
The Seminar
Every year, the speaker series is paired with a for-credit, competitive-entry seminar designed to give students the rare opportunity to meet speakers directly and drive the conversations shaping the debates they will one day inherit.
Students will grapple with these shifts in U.S. and global politics and their consequences for the future of trade and security, the unraveling of multilateral cooperation, and the role of populist politics in driving foreign policy.
Open to graduate students and upper-year undergraduates from any faculty.
