Jonathan Rauch to Deliver Keynote Address to MFSA’s Third Annual Conference

 

As our third annual conference draws nearer and our program continues to take shape, MFSA is excited to announce that Jonathan Rauch will deliver the keynote address at this year’s conference. MFSA’s conference will take place on Thursday, September 25, and registration to attend is open. 

 

Since the publication of his influential book Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought, in which he outlined a framework of “liberal science” by which knowledge is created through dispute and rigorous challenge, Jonathan Rauch has been among our most incisive and eloquent proponents of freedom of expression. A senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a contributing writer at The Atlantic, Rauch is the author of eight books whose writing has also appeared in outlets including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Republic, National Journal, The Economist, and many others. He is a winner of both the National Magazine Award (the industry’s equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize) and the National Headliner Award. In addition to Kindly Inquisitors, Rauch is also the author of The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth, an examination of the modern iterations of disinformation and conspiracy theories as well as the social media-enabled rise of cancel culture. 

 

“Jonathan Rauch has been a strong advocate of the quest for truth and a staunch defender of the free inquiry needed to discover it,” said MFSA President Wayne Stargardt ‘74. “We from the nation’s leading STEM university are looking forward to his thoughts on the importance of knowledge-making through open discourse.”

 

MFSA’s conference will be held on Thursday, September 25, at the Le Meridien Boston Cambridge hotel, adjacent to the MIT campus. As with last year, our conference takes place on the eve of MIT’s Alumni Leadership Conference, and ALC attendees are welcome to attend our conference as well. Attendance at our conference is free, though spaces are limited. Registration may be completed through our event page. 

 

For attendees traveling to the conference from out of town, MFSA has arranged for a small block of rooms at the Le Meridien at a rate of $329 per night. Inquiries regarding lodging at the conference, as well as any other questions about conference details or logistics, may be directed to MFSA Executive Director Peter Bonilla.

 

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Contact: Peter Bonilla, Executive Director