Václav Havel

Václav Havel, playwright and the ex-president of Czechoslovakia, spent the Fall 2006 semester as Columbia's artist in residence. This primarily involved him giving mostly incomprehensible speeches in poor English, most notably a terribly garbled and underwhelming CC Coursewide Lecture.

Controversially, the first semester Lit Hum syllabus, which is traditionally limited to ancient Greek texts and the Bible, was altered that year to include one of Havel's plays, The Garden Party.