Portland Arts & Lectures 2026–27: Ben Rhodes

Ben Rhodes comes to the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall on Wednesday, February 17, 2027, as part of the 2026–27 Portland Arts & Lectures series. The talk is presented by Literary Arts, and since it's part of the full season, you'll need a subscription to the series to attend.

Rhodes is a writer, political commentator, and national security analyst who spent eight years in the Obama administration. From 2009 to 2017, he served as a speechwriter and deputy national security advisor to President Obama, and he's remained a senior advisor to the former president since then. He's also a New York Times bestselling author, with After the Fall and The World as It Is both on that list.

Beyond the books, he's a familiar voice in political media: he co-hosts the podcast Pod Save the World, writes contributing opinion pieces for The New York Times, and chairs National Security Action, the organization he co-founded with Jake Sullivan in 2018. Between the speechwriting, the books, and the podcast, he's spent over a decade writing and talking about foreign policy and national security from the inside.

The talk runs from 7:30 to 9:00 PM at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway, in downtown Portland. It's presented by Literary Arts as one of the stops in the 2026–27 Portland Arts & Lectures season, and a subscription to the full series is required to attend.