Week Six: July 26–August 2, 2025

Every summer Chautauqua Institution welcomes over 100,000 visitors, to celebrate community and prioritize personal growth. Many travel here to relax, renew and recharge on the shores of Chautauqua Lake. Join us and see for yourself why Chautauqua was, and continues to be, a cherished destination. Keep scrolling to explore Week Six’s Theme: The Global Rise of Authoritarianism.

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Chautauqua Lecture Series

The Global Rise of Authoritarianism

In its 2021 Freedom in the World assessment, the nonprofit Freedom House noted a sharp acceleration the previous year in a global decline of democracy, an effect of what it characterized as decades-long trend of rising authoritarianism. A recent survey by the Pew Research Center found that a median of 31% of respondents across 24 different nations are supportive of military rule or an authoritarian leader. In this week, we travel across the globe to nations where authoritarian regimes hold or are gaining power to understand: How? Why? 

As part of this discussion, Amherst College’s Javier Corrales speaks on Tuesday, July 29, 2025, discussing his book Autocracy Rising: How Venezuela Transitioned to Authoritarianism and his larger scholarship on democratic backsliding in Latin America. On Wednesday, July 30, 2025, Joan Donovan — assistant professor of Journalism & Emerging Media Studies at Boston University — will share how alternative political media has evolved in recent years, particularly with regard to the swift advancements in AI, and how social media can be abused to enable and empower authoritarian regimes. Finally, on Friday, Aug. 1, 2025, press freedom advocate and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty editor Alsu Kurmasheva joins Almar Latour, the CEO of Dow Jones and publisher of The Wall Street Journal, in conversation to close a week on “The Global Rise of Authoritarianism.”

Confirmed Lectures

Corrales_Javier_CLS_072925

July 29 @ 10:45 am Week Six (July 26–August 2)

Javier Corrales

Amphitheater | CHQ Assembly

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Javier Corrales
Javier Corrales
Tuesday, July 29th 2025 @ 10:45 am
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Javier Corrales

The Dwight W. Morrow 1895 Professor of Political Science at Amherst College, Javier Corrales’ research focuses on democratization, presidential powers, ruling parties, democratic backsliding, populism, political economy of development, oil and energy, the incumbent’s advantage, foreign policies, and sexuality. He has published extensively on Latin America and the Caribbean, and his latest book — Autocracy Rising: How Venezuela Transitioned to Authoritarianism — argues that deep democratic backsliding is determined by party system features, variations in autocratic legalism, institutional capture, and innovations in the use of coercion. It is this scholarship that will frame his presentation for the Chautauqua Lecture Series in a week focused on “The Global Rise of Authoritarianism.”

Corrales’ other books include Fixing Democracy: Why Constitutional Change Often Fails to Enhance Democracy in Latin America — which develops the concept of power asymmetry between government and opposition forces to explain whether new constitutions will expand presidential powers, and in the process, hurt democracy — and The Politics of LGBTQ Rights Expansion in Latin America and Caribbean.

Corrales has taught at the Center for Latin American Research at the University of Amsterdam and at the Center for Latin American Studies at Georgetown University, and has offered short courses at the Institute of Higher Studies in Administration in Caracas, the School of Government at the University of the Andes in Bogotá, and at the Universidad de Salamanca.

In 2000, he became one of the youngest scholars ever to be selected as a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. Twice a Fulbright scholar, in 2005 in Caracas and 2016 in Bogotá, Corrales obtained his Ph.D. in political science from Harvard University.

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Donovan_Joan_CLS_073025

July 30 @ 10:45 am Week Six (July 26–August 2)

Joan Donovan

Amphitheater | CHQ Assembly

$30 View Details
Joan Donovan
Joan Donovan
Wednesday, July 30th 2025 @ 10:45 am
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Joan Donovan

Joan Donovan is an assistant professor of journalism and emerging media studies in the College of Communications at Boston University. She is also the founder of The Critical Internet Studies Institute, a nonprofit that develops cutting-edge research and educational programs advancing public knowledge of emerging technologies and the paradoxes of innovation. After first speaking for the Chautauqua Lecture Series remotely in 2020, Donovan will now make her in-person Amphitheater debut during the Week Six study of “The Global Rise of Authoritarianism,” sharing how alternative political media has evolved in recent years, particularly with regard to the swift advancements in AI, and how social media can be abused to enable and empower authoritarian regimes.

Donovan is co-author of the book Meme Wars: The Untold Story of the Online Battles Upending Democracy in America, which analyzes how meme culture became an important political communication strategy bridging social movements with contemporary political parties from Occupy to the Jan. 6 insurrection. Formerly, she was the research director of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media Politics and Public Policy, where she oversaw the Technology and Social Change Research Project, which studied media manipulation, disinformation, and adversarial media movements. In 2023, she blew the whistle on corporate influence over that research program.

Previously, Donovan was the research lead for Data & Society’s Media Manipulation Initiative, which mapped how interest groups, governments, political operatives, corporations, and others use the internet and media to disrupt social institutions. She completed her Ph.D. in sociology and science studies at the University of California San Diego, and subsequently was a postdoctoral fellow at the UCLA Institute for Society and Genetics, where she studied white supremacists’ use of DNA ancestry tests, social movements, and technology.

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Alexander_Paige_CLS_073125

July 31 @ 10:45 am Week Six (July 26–August 2)

Paige Alexander

Amphitheater | CHQ Assembly

$30 View Details
Paige Alexander
Paige Alexander
Thursday, July 31st 2025 @ 10:45 am
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Paige Alexander

Paige Alexander serves as chief executive officer of The Carter Center, a nonprofit organization founded in 1982 by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter to advance peace and health worldwide. She joins the Chautauqua Lecture Series in a week exploring “The Global Rise of Authoritarianism” to discuss evolving threats to democracy worldwide, and how The Carter Center works to address those threats.

Alexander joined the Center in 2020 at a pivotal time for the organization and the country. In her first year, Alexander led the organization through the COVID-19 pandemic and a period of national social upheaval, while envisioning a path forward for The Carter Center as it transitioned from an organization that was founder-led to one that is guided by its founders’ principles. Since that time, Alexander has strengthened the Center’s core peace and health programs and led the organization in new directions, including adding programs to address: the global mental health crisis; political polarization in the United States; and the impact of climate change on global peace and public health.

Before joining The Carter Center, Alexander had a distinguished global development career, with more than two decades of experience in the government and nonprofit sectors. She held Senate-confirmed senior leadership positions at two regional bureaus of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), covering missions and development programs in 25 countries.

Alexander currently serves on the boards of the Romanian American Foundation, the World Affairs Council of Atlanta, and the Free Russia Foundation, and as an advisory board member of several human rights organizations.

This Chautauqua Lecture Series program is presented in collaboration with the African American Heritage House at Chautauqua.

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Kurmasheva-Latour_CLS_080125

August 1 @ 10:45 am Week Six (July 26–August 2)

Alsu Kurmasheva & Almar Latour

Amphitheater | CHQ Assembly

$30 View Details
Alsu Kurmasheva & Almar Latour
Alsu Kurmasheva & Almar Latour
Friday, August 1st 2025 @ 10:45 am
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Alsu Kurmasheva & Almar Latour

Press freedom advocate and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty editor Alsu Kurmasheva joins Almar Latour, the CEO of Dow Jones and publisher of The Wall Street Journal, in conversation for the Chautauqua Lecture Series to close a week on “The Global Rise of Authoritarianism.”

Alsu Kurmasheva is a journalist and editor at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), where she has reported extensively on cultural and human rights issues in Russia’s Volga-Ural region. She first joined RFE/RL in 1998 as a radio program moderator and has since built a career covering the experiences of ethnic minorities in Russia. Her reporting has also focused on gender issues, with in-depth investigations into domestic violence and women’s rights.

In October 2023, Kurmasheva was detained in Russia and charged with failing to register as a foreign agent. Two months later, she was accused of spreading “false” information about the Russian military, a charge linked to her alleged role in distributing a book featuring accounts from Russians opposed to the invasion of Ukraine. Held for more than nine months, in July 2024, Kurmasheva was sentenced to six and a half years in prison. In August 2024, she was released as part of a prisoner exchange that also saw the return of fellow American journalist, The Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.

Following her release from detention in Russia, she has emerged as a vocal advocate for press freedom, drawing on her own experience of imprisonment to highlight the risks journalists face in authoritarian regimes.

Almar Latour is publisher of The Wall Street Journal and CEO of Dow Jones, a world-leading news and business information services company. He was named CEO in 2020 and, under his leadership, Dow Jones has delivered record financial results, more than doubling profitability in four years, with significant growth in subscriptions and business information services. The company has doubled digital subscriptions, while safeguarding The Wall Street Journal’s reputation as one of the world’s most-trusted news organizations. Dow Jones’ portfolio of business information offerings including Factiva, OPIS and Risk & Compliance provide businesses with key data and insights to make better decisions.

Latour has an extensive track record of building successful news media businesses in the digital age. He oversaw the creation of the Barron’s Group, quadrupling the group’s digital audience at Barron’s and MarketWatch, and led the modernization of The Wall Street Journal’s website. He also led the development of The Wall Street Journal in Japan, Korea and China.

Latour has been stationed as a journalist in Brussels, London, Stockholm, New York and Hong Kong. He has also served as a bureau chief in New York, the managing editor of The Wall Street Journal online, and the editor-in-chief of The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones in Asia-Pacific before being appointed its executive editor.

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Interfaith Lecture Series

Religion’s Role in Conflict and Extremism

Religion is often regarded as a major contributor to violence, from individual acts within the home to wars and conflicts abroad. What role does religion play in promoting conflict and extremism? How has religion been used to justify the demonization and even targeted killing of “the other?” On the other hand, religion is, in the United States, a category for protection from discrimination. Most faiths direct believers toward love, forgiveness and peace, away from the nurture and establishment of hate. This week, we will hear from a diverse set of perspectives to make sense of the way that religion contributes to and defends against hate in our society.

Confirmed Lectures

Rambachan_Anantanand_interfaith_07-30-25

July 30 @ 2:00 pm Week Six (July 26–August 2)

Anantanand Rambachan

Hall of Philosophy | CHQ Assembly

$19.00 View Details
Anantanand Rambachan
Anantanand Rambachan
Wednesday, July 30th 2025 @ 2:00 pm
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Anantanand Rambachan

Anantanand Rambachan is of Professor Emeritus of Religion at Saint Olaf College, Minnesota, USA (1985-2021). He was also Forum Humanum Visiting Professor at the Academy for the Study of World Religions at the University of Hamburg in Germany (2013-2017).

Prof. Rambachan has been involved in interreligious relations and dialogue for over 40 years, as a Hindu contributor and analyst. He is a Co-President of Religions for Peace, the largest global interfaith network. and serves as President of the Board of Arigatou International NY, a global organization advocating for the rights of children and mobilizing the resources of religions to overcome violence against children. He also Chairs the Board of Directors of the Minnesota Multifaith Network. He is active in the dialogue programs of the World Council of Churches and the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue at the Vatican, and currently participates in the Ethics in Action dialogues at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. In 2008, at the invitation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Professor Rambachan delivered the distinguished Lambeth Interfaith Lecture at the Lambeth Palace in London. Professor Rambachan led the first two White House Celebrations of the Hindu Festival of Diwali in 2003 and 2004.

His books include Accomplishing the Accomplished: The Vedas as a Source of Valid Knowledge in Ṡaṅkara; The Limits of Scripture: Vivekananda’s Reinterpretation of the Authority of the Vedas, The Advaita Worldview: God, World and Humanity, A Hindu Theology of Liberation: Not-Two is Not-One; Essays in Hindu Theology and Pathways to Hindu-Christian Dialogue. In addition, Professor Rambachan has authored numerous book-chapters and journal essays. The British Broadcasting Corporation transmitted a series of 25 lectures on Hinduism by Prof. Rambachan around the world.

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August 1 @ 2:00 pm Week Six (July 26–August 2)

Matthew D. Taylor

Hall of Philosophy | CHQ Assembly

$19.00 View Details
Matthew D. Taylor
Matthew D. Taylor
Friday, August 1st 2025 @ 2:00 pm
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Matthew D. Taylor

Matthew D. Taylor is senior scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies in Baltimore, where he specializes in American Christianity, American Islam, Christian extremism, and religious politics. His new book, The Violent Take It by Force: The Christian Movement that is Threatening Our Democracy (Broadleaf, 2024), tracks how a loose network of charismatic Christian leaders called the New Apostolic Reformation was a major instigating force for the January 6th Insurrection and is currently reshaping the culture of the religious right in the U.S. He is the creator, writer, and narrator of the Charismatic Revival Fury audio-documentary series on the Straight White American Jesus podcast. He is also the author of Scripture People: Salafi Muslims in Evangelical Christians’ America (Cambridge, 2023). Taylor holds a PhD in religious studies and Muslim-Christian relations from Georgetown University and an MA in theology from Fuller Theological Seminary. He also serves as an associate fellow at the Center for Peace Diplomacy in New Orleans, where he works on preventing religion-related violence surrounding U.S. elections. Previously he served on the faculty of Georgetown University and of George Washington University.

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Weekly Chaplain

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Rabbi Peter Berg

Peter Berg became the fifth senior rabbi of The Temple since 1895 in July of 2008. Rabbi Berg is passionate about Jewish learning and meaningful worship, and he is an advocate for social change. Prior to coming to The Temple, he served as rabbi of Temple Beth Or in Washington Township, New Jersey and as the Associate Rabbi of Temple Emanuel-El in Dallas, Texas. 

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