Watch the 2025 Silha Lecture online
The video of the 2025 Silha Lecture, "Stop Drawing or Else: A Cartoonist's View on Democracy's Perilous Moment" with Ann Telnaes and Roslyn Mazer is now available.
You can watch the video on YouTube here.
Ann Telnaes won the Pulitzer Prize in 2021 and 2025 for her editorial cartoons, along with multiple other honors, including the National Cartoonists Society’s Reuben for Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year and the international EWK Award, named after legendary Swedish cartoonist Ewert Karlsson. Her work has been published in The New York Times, Le Monde, and The Washington Post, among other outlets. After 16 years at The Washington Post, Telnaes resigned when a cartoon she submitted was rejected because it criticized billionaire tech and media executives, including Jeff Bezos, for trying to curry favor with President Trump. Utilizing a variety of editorial cartoons, Telnaes began her lecture by noting that cartoonists will always “be first in the line of fire when controversial subjects are being debated and free speech threatened.”
Following her remarks, Telnaes was joined onstage by attorney and free speech advocate Rosalyn Mazer who, as counsel to the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists, submitted an amicus curiae (friend-of-the-court) brief to the Supreme Court on behalf of Hustler Magazine in the landmark case of Hustler Magazine, Inc., v. Falwell. 485 U.S. 46 (1988). Together, Telnaes and Mazer discussed the current state of free speech in the United States.
The lecture and discussion were followed by a Q&A session with questions from audience members present and watching online.
Silha Center activities, including the annual lecture, are made possible by a generous endowment from the late Otto and Helen Silha.