Think Forum returns with four nationally recognized authors and thought leaders

One of the nation’s longest-running consecutive speaker series, Case Western Reserve University’s Think Forum, will welcome four acclaimed authors and thought leaders to campus during the 2026-27 academic year.

Open to students, alumni, faculty, staff and the general public, the annual series offers opportunities to hear from influential voices whose work is shaping national conversations around journalism, politics, medicine, mental health, literature and culture. Registration is required for all events.

The series begins Monday, Aug. 17, with University Welcome and Fall Convocation featuring Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author Jodi Kantor at 4 p.m. in the Veale Convocation, Recreation and Athletic Center.

An investigative reporter for The New York Times, Kantor is best known for co-breaking the Harvey Weinstein investigation that helped ignite the global #MeToo movement and earned the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. She is also the bestselling author of She Said, The Obamas and How to Start: Discovering Your Life’s Work.

Think Forum continues Thursday, Sept. 24, with the F. Joseph Callahan Distinguished Lecture featuring David Brooks at 7 p.m. at the Milton and Tamar Maltz Performing Arts Center.

A bestselling author, Brooks is Yale University’s Jackson School of Global Affairs’ first presidential senior fellow, a contributing writer at The Atlantic and a recurring commentator on PBS Newshour. With decades of experience as an op-ed columnist for The New York Times, Brooks, author of How to Know a Person, is widely recognized for his insight into American life, politics and foreign affairs.

The annual Martin Luther King Jr. Convocation will be held Friday, Jan. 22, 2027, at 12:45 p.m. in the Tinkham Veale University Center, featuring physician and author Damon Tweedy.

Tweedy’s writing explores the intersections of race, medicine and mental health. His first book, Black Man in a White Coat: A Doctor’s Reflections on Race and Medicine, was a New York Times bestseller, and his second, Facing the Unseen: The Struggle to Center Mental Health in Medicine, was recognized as an Amazon Best Nonfiction Book and one of Nature’s best science books of 2024.

The series concludes on March 23, 2027, with the Mills Lecture, in partnership with the Baker-Nord Institute for the Humanities, featuring Joshua Bennett at the Maltz Performing Arts Center.

Bennett is the Distinguished Chair of the Humanities and Professor of Literature at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the author of seven books, including Spoken Word: A Cultural History, named a New York Times Notable Book. An award-winning poet and scholar, he has received honors from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Whiting Foundation.

Think Forum, previously known as the Town Hall of Cleveland, has long brought leading thinkers and writers to campus and remains a signature series for the university and broader community. For more information and to register, visit case.edu/events/thinkforum