2026 Distinguished Carlson Lecture: Doris Kearns Goodwin

Doris Kearns Goodwin will be at Northrop on Monday, November 2, 2026, from 6 to 7:15 PM. She's coming to Minneapolis as the 2026 Distinguished Carlson Lecturer, a series presented by the Humphrey School of Public Affairs. The evening is a moderated conversation, with Gary Eichten leading the discussion.

Goodwin is a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and presidential scholar whose work has spent more than five decades shaping how we think about American leadership and democracy. She won the Pulitzer in history for No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II, and her book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln helped inspire Steven Spielberg's Oscar-nominated film Lincoln. She started her career as a White House fellow working directly for President Lyndon Johnson and earned a doctorate in government from Harvard, where she later taught a course on the American presidency.

Gary Eichten, who'll be moderating, spent over 40 years at Minnesota Public Radio and was inducted into the Minnesota Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 2007. The Distinguished Carlson Lecture series began in 1980 with a gift from Curtis L. Carlson to honor his late friend Hubert H. Humphrey, and it's supported by Carlson and the Carlson Family Foundation.

Admission is free and open to the public, but you'll need a ticket to get in. Registration opened on Monday, October 12, 2026, so you'll want to grab yours early. The talk runs from 6 to 7:15 PM at Northrop on the University of Minnesota campus.