Martha Sharp Joukowsky Lectureships
The stipend of the Charles Eliot Norton Memorial Lecturer was never lavish but, by 1989, it was judged to be inadequate by the Lecture Program Committee which recommended cutting the number of lectures given in half. Also in 1989, an anonymous donor established the President’s Lectures Fund to yearly support a special speaker to deliver the lectures not given by the Norton Lecturer.
The President’s Lectureship became the Martha Sharp Joukowsky Lectureship in 1993. In 1998, the endowment was increased to support two Joukowsky Lecturers. Martha Sharp Joukowsky is past President of the AIA and Professor of Old World Archaeology at Brown University. She has conducted archaeological research in Greece, Italy, Turkey and Jordan. She is currently excavating the Southern Temple in Petra (Jordan).
The Martha Sharp Joukowsky Lecturers are distinguished archaeologists and may be of any nationality and work in any field of our discipline. The Joukowsky Lecturers are selected by the Lecture Program Committee and together lecture to twenty-six local societies annually.
Sheldon H. Solow Lecture
Sheldon H. Solow, builder and owner of residential and commercial properties in New York since 1950, has helped to set new standards of excellence in design and the application of innovative technology for investment builders. He has long recognized the synergistic relationship of art to architecture that is reflected in all of his buildings. In 1991, he founded the Solow Art and Architecture Foundation to support art and architectural studies. Solow Lecturers speak on Classical and Renaissance topics.
Mr. Solow is presently very active in many leading educational and art institutions. He has been the Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the Institute of Fine Arts, NY since 1992. He is also a Member of the Board of Trustees at New York University, Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and a Member of the Chairman’s Council at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
One Sheldon H. Solow Lecture is given annually for the New Haven Society on a topic according to Mr. Solow’s interests. The Sheldon H. Solow Lecturer is chosen by the Lecture Program Committee.
Homer A. and Dorothy B. Thompson Lectureship
Homer A. Thompson was Professor of Classical Archaeology at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. From 1947 to 1967, Professor Thompson was Field Director of the Agora excavations in Athens. His wife, Dorothy Burr Thompson, was for many years a member of the staff of the Agora excavations. She is an authority on ancient Greek figurines and ancient gardens.
The Princeton Society of the AIA was the principal initiator of the Thompson Lectureship Fund in 1987. Friends of Homer and Dorothy Thompson contributed to the endowment to honor them for their outstanding contribution to classical archaeology.
Scholars who hold the Thompson Lectureship are generally selected with consideration to the Thompsons’ lifelong interest in Greek minor arts and the topography of Greece, though others may be selected as well. The Thompson Lecturer is recommended to the AIA Lecture Program Committee by the Thompson Lectureship Subcommittee.
The Thompson Lecturer annually visits two societies, the Princeton Society and one other.
The William E. Metcalf Lecture Series in Numismatics
This lectureship was established in 1999 by Robert D. Taggart and his wife Anna Marguerite McCann. Anna Marguerite McCann has been active in the AIA for many years. She has served as a member of the Governing Board and on many AIA committees. She was invited by the AIA to be the Charles Eliot Norton Memorial Lecturer for 1994/1995 and in 1998 she was selected as the AIA Gold Medal winner.
The Metcalf Lectures are on the subject of numismatics and their role in archaeological research as well as in art and historical research. The donors believe that coins, with their images and legends, are an essential source for any archaeologist dating a site or studying portraiture, architecture, religion or history and desire that numismatics be a part of the lecture program being provided by the AIA. Although much of numismatics is related to the ancient world, the lectures need not be limited to the ancient world as coins are relavant for other areas and times as well.
The Metcalf Lecturer is chosen by a subcommittee of the Lecture Program Committee and currently addresses three local societies annually.
The Charles Eliot Norton Memorial Lectureship
In 1879, Charles Eliot Norton, professor of the History of Art at Harvard University, founded, with a group of eleven associates, the Archaeological Institute of America. Norton was elected the first president of the AIA. During his presidency, which lasted for eleven years, Norton was involved in the supervision of Institute fieldwork in both the Old and New Worlds, in the founding of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, and in the publication of the first American Journal of Archaeology.
In 1907, James Loeb, who had been one of Norton’s students at Harvard, offered to pay the honorarium of “some distinguished foreign lecturer” thereby founding the Norton Lectureship. Professor D.G. Hogarth delivered the first Norton Lectures in 1907-1908. In 1909 James Loeb created the Charles Eliot Norton Memorial Lecture Fund to support “one or more distinguished archaeologists for a course of lectures…preference to be given to European scholars, but in the discretion of the Council, invitations may also be extended to American scholars.”
Since its beginnings, the Norton Lectureship has undergone some transformations but it always was and continues to be to this day, one of the highest honors that the Institute can bestow. Today the Charles Eliot Norton Memorial Lecturers are distinguished archaeologists and eminent scholars who may be of any nationality and may work in any field of our discipline. The Norton Lecturers are chosen by the Lecture Program Committee and annually lecture to seventeen local societies.
Kershaw Lectures in Near East Archaeology
In 1994, Norma and Reuben Kershaw established the Kershaw Lectures in Near East Archaeology with a significant endowment gift to the AIA from the Kershaw Family Trust. The lectures pay tribute to Norma, AIA Trustee Emerita and long time supporter of the AIA at all levels, and her interest in Near East archaeology. The Kershaw Lectures deal with archaeological research related to the geographic areas of the present countries of Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey during the time between 7000 B.C. and 400 A.D.
The Kershaw Lecturers are recommended by the AIA Near East Archaeology Committee to the AIA Lecture Program Committee. Five lectures are delivered annually.