Uploaded June 2026 | Updated September 2026, 18 hours ago
The charge: We change how the history of the past is told to change how the history of the future is lived.
From the crisis of history comes the charge of compassion: We change how the history of the past is told to change how the history of the future is lived. We are living in a time of profound global upheaval political, economic, environmental, societal, and deeply personal. In such moments, history offers not just perspective, but warning.
Whose history? Whose perspective? Whose warning?
This keynote explores how history unexamined inhibits our capacity for imagination and changing course.
Through lived experience and historical insight, Dr. Janus Adams reveals the hidden assumptions that shape how we see one another, how we make decisions, and how institutions sustain or fail us.
At the heart of the session are three stories: a circle of young people who reveal what happens when no one is asked; a global tragedy that underscores how interconnected our lives truly are; and a historic structure whose collapse reflects the cost of holding too tightly to certainty. Each offers a lens into the patterns that continue to shape our world.
This is not a lecture on history. It is an invitation to use history as a living laboratory to examine how we think, how we decide, and how we regard one another and, ultimately, ourselves.
In a time marked by division, fear, and the resurgence of easy answers, this talk asks a different question: What if compassion is not softness, but strategy? What if the ability to see beyond our assumptions is not idealism, but leadership?
History and Healing: The Charge challenges participants to reconsider the narratives we have inherited and our individual responsibility in shaping what comes next.
The charge: We change how the history of the past is told to change how the history of the future is lived.
From the crisis of history comes the charge of compassion: We change how the history of the past is told to change how the history of the future is lived. We are living in a time of profound global upheaval political, economic, environmental, societal, and deeply personal. In such moments, history offers not just perspective, but warning.
Whose history? Whose perspective? Whose warning?
This keynote explores how history unexamined inhibits our capacity for imagination and changing course.
Through lived experience and historical insight, Dr. Janus Adams reveals the hidden assumptions that shape how we see one another, how we make decisions, and how institutions sustain or fail us.
At the heart of the session are three stories: a circle of young people who reveal what happens when no one is asked; a global tragedy that underscores how interconnected our lives truly are; and a historic structure whose collapse reflects the cost of holding too tightly to certainty. Each offers a lens into the patterns that continue to shape our world.
This is not a lecture on history. It is an invitation to use history as a living laboratory to examine how we think, how we decide, and how we regard one another and, ultimately, ourselves.
In a time marked by division, fear, and the resurgence of easy answers, this talk asks a different question: What if compassion is not softness, but strategy? What if the ability to see beyond our assumptions is not idealism, but leadership?
History and Healing: The Charge challenges participants to reconsider the narratives we have inherited and our individual responsibility in shaping what comes next.
