The Kahlil Gibran Collective is available for speaking engagements worldwide. Whether for a university lecture, a cultural festival, a literary event, or a private gathering, our scholars bring Gibran's life, art, and legacy vividly to life for audiences of all backgrounds.
Kahlil Gibran Collective · Speaking Engagements
Glen Kalem-Habib presenting at the Lebanese American University, Beirut, 2014.
"Love is a quenchless thirst."
— Kahlil Gibran
Poet and painter Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931), best known for his masterwork The Prophet, left an enduring legacy that places him among the great voices of world literature — a champion of human rights, a forerunner of peace and reconciliation, and an artist whose work continues to speak to millions of readers across every culture and language.
The scholars of the Kahlil Gibran Collective bring decades of original research and field experience to every engagement. Using rare archival images, original documents, and the kind of knowledge that only comes from years spent in the places where Gibran's story unfolded — Boston, New York, Paris, Beirut, Bsharri — our presentations bring Gibran fully and vividly to life for audiences of all backgrounds.
Our presentations can be tailored to suit the needs and interests of your audience, and may cover any combination of the following:
Presentations are available as solo lectures, panel discussions, guided museum tours, or interactive workshops. We are equally at home speaking to general audiences or to academic and scholarly gatherings.
Glen Kalem-Habib — International Kahlil Gibran researcher, historian, and filmmaker based in Sydney, Australia. Over more than two decades of field research across four continents, Glen has pursued Gibran's story through archives, museums, private collections, and the living communities that continue to celebrate his work. His research formed the foundation of the feature documentary Kahlil Gibran: The Reluctant Visionary. He has presented at the Lebanese American University in Beirut, Peking University in Beijing, and at international Gibran conferences in the United States, Lebanon, and France. He is a founding member of the Kahlil Gibran Collective and a fellow of the International Association for the Study of the Life and Works of Kahlil Gibran.
Francesco Medici — Italian scholar, translator, and researcher. Francesco has translated several of Gibran's works into Italian, including The Prophet, Lazarus and His Beloved, and The Blind. He is a leading authority on the global translation history of The Prophet, and discovered the rare photograph of Gibran at the Smithsonian Institution that had been hidden for decades under a misspelling of his name. He has presented at international Gibran conferences including the 5th Rencontre Internationale Gibran at the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris (2019), and his research has been published by the George and Lisa Zakhem Kahlil Gibran Chair for Values and Peace at the University of Maryland.
Tania June Sammons — Senior Curator and Gibran scholar, recipient of the 2014 Kahlil Gibran International Award. Tania has devoted more than two decades to researching Gibran's visual art and his relationship with Mary Haskell, whose papers and artworks are held at the Telfair Museums in Savannah, Georgia. She is co-author of The Art of Kahlil Gibran at Telfair Museums (Telfair Books, 2010), and her paper "Kahlil Gibran's Visual Representation of the Feminine Divine" was published in The Enduring Legacy of Kahlil Gibran (University of Maryland, 2012).
Todd Fine — Ameen Rihani scholar, historian, and president of the Washington Street Historical Society, dedicated to the history and literature of Little Syria — the Arab-American neighbourhood of Lower Manhattan where both Rihani and Gibran lived and worked. Todd is the editor of The Book of Khalid: A Critical Edition (Syracuse University Press, 2016) — a landmark scholarly edition of the first Arab-American novel in English, illustrated by Gibran in 1911. In 2011 he directed Project Khalid, the centennial campaign for The Book of Khalid, with events at the Library of Congress and the New York Public Library. He holds a BA from Harvard University and an MA in international relations from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University, and is a PhD candidate in history at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. As Gibran's closest intellectual companion, Ameen Rihani is central to any full understanding of Gibran's literary development — and Todd is the foremost living authority on his life and work.
To enquire about booking a speaker for your event — whether a single presenter or a panel — please contact us at hello@kahlilgibran.com. We welcome enquiries from anywhere in the world and are happy to discuss formats, topics, and availability.
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