The Night Before: Reunion Homecoming

What is home? In this in-person event to introduce the online series for alumni called The Night Before, we will mark the night before Homecoming with a talk about how ancient and modern thinkers have conceived of the idea of home. Roland Greene, the director of the Stanford Humanities Center, will discuss some of the complexity with which the idea was endowed in antiquity, how early moderns such as Shakespeare and Montaigne reimagined it for their times, and how in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries it has been rethought again. The Night Before series brings you familiar occasions seen in a new light—and what is more familiar than coming home? A light reception will follow immediately after this talk.

Roland Greene is the Pigott KBE Professor, Anthony P. Meier Family Professor of the Humanities and Professor of Comparative Literature and, by courtesy, of Iberian and Latin American Cultures.

* In-person attendance is reserved for alumni who have registered for Stanford Reunion Homecoming. A Zoom-only option is available. 

About the Series

The Night Before is a series of conversations in which we examine ritual occasions through the insights of the humanities. As we come together, handcrafted cocktails and mocktails tell their own stories about these unique times of year. In one hour, we learn to experience the next day differently.

Hosted by Stanford alumni, each online party is free, and features a guided conversation led by faculty or Humanities Center Fellows.