Bellarmine University will welcome historian and award-winning author Dr. Deborah Cohen as the featured speaker for the 2025 Guarnaschelli Lecture on Thursday, October 30, 2025, at 6 p.m. in Frazier Hall.
Her lecture, titled “You, Too: Judgments at Nuremberg,” is free and open to the public, but seats must be reserved in advance online at
https://www.bellarmine.edu/guarnaschelli. This lecture is part of Bellarmine’s 75th anniversary celebration, commemorating the university’s legacy of Catholic, student-centered education, and its continued commitment
to shaping graduates who lead with purpose and integrity.
The
Guarnaschelli Lecture Series brings distinguished voices in the humanities and arts to campus to foster public dialogue, critical reflection and cultural understanding. The series was established through an endowed gift from Dr. John and Marty Guarnaschelli
of Louisville, whose generosity has made possible appearances by writers and thinkers including Isabel Allende, Wendell Berry, Gwendolyn Brooks, Ken Burns, James Dickey, Norman Mailer, Joyce Carol Oates, Salman Rushdie, and Ari Shapiro.
Dr. Cohen, the Richard W. Leopold Professor of History at Northwestern University and director at its Buffett Institute for Global Affairs, is widely recognized for her work on modern Britain and Europe, exploring intersections of private life, social
change, and global conflict. Raised in Louisville, she earned her doctorate in history from the University of California, Berkeley, and is the author of several acclaimed books. Her most recent, Last Call at the Hotel Imperial: The Reporters Who Took
on a World at War (Random House, 2022), received the Mark Lynton History Prize, the Goldsmith Prize and the Ralph Waldo Emerson Prize. In addition to her academic work, Dr. Cohen writes frequently for The Atlantic and contributes to The New York Review
of Books, London Review of Books and The Wall Street Journal.
In her Bellarmine lecture, Dr. Cohen will examine the moral and historical questions raised by the post–World War II Nuremberg trials, considering how notions of collective and individual responsibility continue to shape modern understandings of
justice. The talk reflects Bellarmine’s enduring mission to engage students and the broader community in ethical inquiry, civic responsibility, and the pursuit of truth.
“On behalf of our faculty, we are honored and excited to host Dr. Cohen for our 2025 Guarnaschelli Lecture,” said Dr. Mark Wiegand, Bellarmine’s vice president for academic affairs and provost. “Her scholarship challenges us to
reflect deeply on accountability, asking questions that remain as relevant today as they were eight decades ago. Free, public lectures that share expert perspectives with a wide audience are at the heart of Bellarmine’s mission – educating
the whole person and fostering dialogue that strengthens both intellect and community.”