The Reinhard Kuhn Memorial Lecture Fund was established in 1982 to support an annual lecture. Numerous contributions were received from Professor Kuhn’s friends, colleagues and students, including a gift from the late Chancellor of the University, Mr. Richard Salomon. 

Professor of French Studies and Comparative Literature at Brown University for nearly twenty years until his death in 1980, Kuhn was an intellectual force both at Brown and in the larger academic world. As chairman of French Studies for ten years he contributed significantly to curricular innovations that still characterize the University. His scholarship has been recognized by honors such as membership in the Academy of Literary Studies, the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton, and the Ordre des Palmes Académiques. The range of his literary research is exemplified by such works as The Demon of Noontide: Ennui in Western Literature and Corruption in Paradise: The Child in Western Literature.

1983 Mary Ann Caws
1984  Dominick LaCapra
1985  Robert Darnton
1986  Peter Brooks
1987  Thomas M. Greene
1988 Linda Nochlin 
1989  Albert S. Cook 
1990 Roger Shattuck 
1991  Elaine Scarry 
1992  Werner Hamacher 
1993  Robert Fagles
1994  Neil Hertz
1995 Arnold Weinstein
1996  Samuel Weber
1997  Franco Fido
1998  David Marshall
1999 Kwame Anthony Appiah
2000 Mary N. Layoun
2001  (Spring) Carolyn Dinshaw 
2001  (Fall) George Steiner 
2002  Roland Greene
2003  Judith Butler
2005  Peter Cole
2006 (Spring) Srinivas Aravamudan
2006 (Fall) Marjorie G. Perloff 
2008 (Spring) William Mills Todd III 
2008 (Fall) Michael Lucey 
2010 (Spring) Ron Bush 
2010 (Fall) Daniel Heller-Roazen 
2011 Rubén Gallo 
2013 (Spring) Ursula K. Heise 
2013 (Fall) John Hamilton 
2015  Sheldon Pollock 
2016  Joseph R. Slaughter 
2017  Sianne Ngai
2018  Aamir R. Mufti
2019 Biodun Jeyifo
2021 (Spring) Lydia Liu
2021 (Fall) Jane Tylus
2023 Teodolinda Barolini