The Finzi-Contini Lectures present a distinguished speaker in the field of comparative literature, broadly defined. The inaugural Finzi-Contini lecture was delivered by Umberto Eco, and for more than thirty years, the lectureship has brought such notable figures as Masha Gessen, Amitav Ghosh, Tzvetan Todorov, and Percival Everett to the Whitney Humanities Center. Beginning in 2021, The Yale Review has cosponsored the Finzi-Contini Lectures and published revised versions of the talks.
The Finzi-Contini lectureship was endowed in 1990 by the Honorable Guido Calabresi, Judge in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and Dr. Paul Calabresi, in memory of their mother, Bianca Maria Finzi-Contini Calabresi, a scholar of European literature and Professor of Italian at Albertus Magnus College.
