Ware Lecture
2024 Ware Lecture: Julia Watts Belser
Saturday, June 22, 2024 at 7:00 PM ET / 6:00 PM CT / 5:00 PM MT / 4:00 PM PT
Each year, the UUA President extends a prestigious invitation to an outstanding guest to captivate the General Assembly as the esteemed Ware Lecturer. To be part of this extraordinary moment, you must register for General Assembly. With your registration, you'll have the privilege of live-streaming the event on June 22 or accessing the video on-demand when it's made available. Don't miss this opportunity to be inspired!
Julia Watts Belser (she/her) is a rabbi, scholar, spiritual teacher and a longtime activist for disability and gender justice. She is Professor of Jewish Studies in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at Georgetown University, as well as core faculty in Georgetown’s Disability Studies Program and a Senior Research Fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs. Her work brings ancient Jewish texts into dialogue with disability studies, feminist thought, queer theory, and environmental justice ethics. She is a cultural historian of rabbinic Jewish literature and a contemporary Jewish feminist theologian who draws disability arts and culture into provocative conversation with Jewish tradition to challenge structural violence, deepen our capacity for social justice, and honor the sacredness of disabled people’s lives.
Belser has held faculty fellowships at Harvard Divinity School and the Katz Center for Advanced Jewish Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of two scholarly books, Rabbinic Tales of Destruction: Gender, Sex, and Disability in the Ruins of Jerusalem (Oxford University Press, 2018) and Power, Ethics, and Ecology: Rabbinic Responses to Drought and Disaster (Cambridge University Press, 2015). Her most recent book, Loving Our Own Bones: Disability Wisdom and the Spiritual Subversiveness of Knowing Ourselves Whole (Beacon Press, 2023; published in the UK by Hodder & Stoughton), is the recipient of a National Jewish Book Award.
At Georgetown, Belser directs Disability and Climate Change: A Public Archive Project, an initiative that documents the wisdom and insights of disabled activists, artists, and first responders on the frontlines of climate crisis. She co-authored an international Health Handbook for Women with Disabilities (Hesperian Foundation, 2007), developed in collaboration with disability activists from 42 countries and translated into 14 languages, designed to help challenge the root causes of poverty, gender violence, and disability discrimination. She’s also an avid wheelchair hiker, a lover of wild places, and a passionate supporter of disability dance.
History of the Ware Lecture
The Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) President, in consultation with the General Assembly Planning Committee, invites a distinguished guest each year to address the General Assembly as the Ware Lecturer.
In 1920, Harriet E. Ware of Milton, MA, bequeathed $5,000 to the American Unitarian Association (AUA) for its unrestricted use. Two years later, on the evening of May 24, 1922, the first Ware Lecture was given by the Rev. Frederick W. Norwood, pastor of the City Temple in London, England. The lecture had been "established in honor of the distinguished services of three generations of the Ware family to the cause of Pure Christianity."
The lecture has been given every year at the former May Meetings of the AUA and since 1961 at the General Assembly. No lecture was scheduled for 1945 due to World War II, although Morris S. Lazaron delivered an address on May 23, 1945 at All Souls Church in Washington, DC, which is referred to as a Ware lecture. There was no lecture in 1950 when the Unitarians celebrated their 125th anniversary.
The Harvard Square Library maintains a history of the Ware Lecture, including illustrated biographical notes.
Previous Ware Lecturers
Previous Ware Lecturers have included the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., Kurt Vonnegut, and poet Mary Oliver.
- 2022 Dr. Ibram X. Kendi (video not available)
- 2021 Stacey Abrams and Desmond Meade (Vimeo 61 minutes)
- 2020 Naomi Klein (Vimeo 63 minutes)
- 2019 Richard Blanco
- 2018 Brittany Packnett
- 2017 Bryan Stevenson
- 2016 Krista Tippett
- 2015 Cornel West
- 2014 Sister Simone Campbell
- 2013 Eboo Patel
- 2012 Maria Hinojosa
- 2011 Karen Armstrong
- 2010 Winona LaDuke
- 2009 Melissa Harris-Lacewell
- 2008 Van Jones
- 2007 Rashid Khalidi
- 2006 Mary Oliver
- 2005 Dr. Elaine Pagels
- 2004 Holly Near
- 2003 Julian Bond
- 2002 Stephen Lewis
- 2001 Rev. Dr. James A. Forbes
- 2000 Morris Dees
- 1999 Mary Pipher
- 1998 Amitai Etzioni
- 1997 Rev. Joan Brown Campbell
- 1996 Sylvia Ann Hewlett
- 1995 Norman Lear
- 1994 Dr. Holland Hendrix
- 1993 Marian Wright Edelman
- 1992 Mel Hurtig
- 1991 Elizabeth Dodson Gray
- 1990 Schuyler Chapin
- 1989 Sissela Bok
- 1988 Robert Coles
- 1987 Anthony Lewis
- 1986 Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
- 1985 Shirley Chisholm
- 1984 Dr. Helen Caldicott
- 1983 Thomas R. Berger
- 1982 May Sarton
- 1981 Vernon Jordan, Jr.
- 1980 LaDonna Harris
- 1979 Jesse Jackson
- 1978 Jean Mayer
- 1977 Milton R. Konvitze
- 1976 Bruce Murray
- 1975 John Beecher
- 1974 Elliot Richardson
- 1973 John Coleman
- 1972 Malvina Reynolds
- 1971 Alvin Toffler
- 1970 Rollo May
- 1969 Martin E. Marty, Bernard Delfgaauw, R.J. Werblowsky
- 1968 Carl B. Stokes
- 1967 Saul Alinsky
- 1966 Martin Luther King, Jr.
- 1965 Harry D. Gideonse
- 1964 Linus Pauling
- 1963 F.S.C. Northrop
- 1962 Walter Kaufmann
- 1961 Abram Sachar
- 1960 Harold Taylor
- 1959 George Wald
- 1958 Edward A. Weeks, Jr.
- 1957 Charles Frankel
- 1956 Howard Thurman
- 1955 Henry DeWolf Smyth
- 1954 Agnes Ernst Meyer
- 1953 Howard Mumford Jones
- 1952 Henry Steele Commager
- 1951 T.V. Smith
- 1950 No lecture due to 125th Anniversary of Unitarians
- 1949 Erwin D. Canham
- 1948 Henry J. Cadbury
- 1947 Brock Chisholm
- 1946 George D. Stoddard
- 1945 No lecture due to World War II
- 1944 Max Lerner
- 1943 Walter Francis White
- 1942 Alfred M. Bingham
- 1941 Harry D. Gideonse
- 1940 Adolph Agustus Berle, Jr.
- 1939 Eduard C. Lindeman
- 1938 John Haynes Holmes
- 1937 Michael Williams
- 1936 James G. McDonald
- 1935 Frederick B. Fisher
- 1934 Reinhold Niebuhr
- 1933 Jesse H. Holmes
- 1932 Aurelia Henry Reinhardt
- 1931 Jane Addams
- 1930 William L. Sullivan
- 1929 Francis J. McConnell
- 1928 Frank Oliver Hall
- 1927 William Ellery Sweet
- 1926 James Smyth
- 1925 Ambrose W. Vernon
- 1924 John H. Finley
- 1923 K.H. Roessingh
- 1922 Rev. Frederick W. Norwood