The Eighteenth Dale E. Benson Lecture
“Einstein’s Blackboard: Struggles with Communication in the History of Innovation”
Michael J. Halvorson, Pacific Lutheran University
How do individuals and organizations share breakthrough ideas with the public? Why is this process crucial for the funding and acceptance of new scientific discoveries, public health initiatives, and commercial products? From Galileo to Albert Einstein to Grace Hopper, and from subway maps to vaccines and emerging AI tools, this lecture explores the crucial role that innovation rhetoric plays in the history of science and business. Drawing on careers in product development, technical writing, and teaching history and innovation, Professor Halvorson will explore how innovation is framed as a public discourse and why famous innovators sometimes struggle to promote pathbreaking discoveries.
The 2025 Benson Lecture will be Dr. Halvorson’s final university address as Benson Chair in Business and Economic History, a position he has held since 2016. The College of Liberal Studies encourages Dr. Halvorson’s current and former students to attend the event, as well as members of the extended PLU community.
The lecture will take place at 7:00 p.m. on Monday, October 13, 2025, in the Scandinavian Cultural Center in Anderson/UC.
Speaker Bio
Michael J. Halvorson attended PLU from 1981 to 1985 and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science. He worked at Microsoft Corporation from 1985 to 1993, then completed M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in History at the University of Washington (1996, 2001). He joined PLU’s Department of History in 2003 and has offered courses in medieval and early modern Europe, business and economic history, and the history of computing and technology. In 2017, he co-founded the Innovation Studies program and served as the program’s initial director from 2017 to 2024.
Halvorson is the author of This Little World: A How-To Guide for Social Innovators (with Shelly Cano Kurtz), Code Nation: Personal Computing and the Learn-to-Program Movement, The Renaissance: All That Matters, Confessional Polemic in Early Lutheran Orthodoxy, and Defining Community in Early Modern Europe (with Karen E. Spierling). He has published essays in Stanford Social Innovation Review, Sixteenth Century Journal, Lutheran Quarterly, and Archive for Reformation History.
Event Details
Speaker: Michael J. Halvorson, Pacific Lutheran University
Date: Monday, October 13, 2025
Time: 7:00 p.m. – 8:15 p.m.
Location: Scandinavian Cultural Center, Anderson UC
This event is free and open to the public.
For more information
For more information, contact Michael Halvorson (halvormj@plu.edu) in the Department of History.
About the Lecture Series
The Dale E. Benson Lecture Series in Business and Economic History
Supported by a generous endowment from the Benson Family, the Dale E. Benson Lecture in Business and Economic History is designed to bring leading experts in the fields of history, business, and economics to campus to address the PLU community.
Along with the business and economic history curriculum, the lecture is designed to encourage the study of business organizations, entrepreneurs, workers, products, and consumers, as well as the economic forces that have shaped contemporary culture and society. The program encourages historical reflection, creative problem solving, and ethical leadership across campus.
Previous Lecturers
Glory M. Liu (2023)
Justin Spelhaug (2022)
Sven Beckert (2019)
Alice Steinglass (2018)
Brad Tilden (2017)
Stephen Mihm (2016)
Seth Rockman (2015)
Gary Cross (2014)
Mansel G. Blackford (2013)
Deirdre N. McCloskey (2012)
Peter Coclanis (2011)
Joyce Appleby (2010)
Walter Licht (2009)
Peter H. Lindert (2008)
Naomi R. Lamoreaux (2007)
Richard R. John (2007)
Michael A. Bernstein (2006)