Virtual Roundtable on How We Should Understand the History of the Hewlett Foundation

Published in the June 2026 issue of Economy and Society, Inderjeet Parmar authored a "sharply critical article" on the Hewlett Foundation, arguing "that the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation (HF) is a paradigmatic 'liberal crisis machine'-- an elite institution that diagnoses threats to U.S. democracy and hegemony but, in practice, moderates radical change, co-opts dissent, and ultimately shores up the corporate-liberal order that fuels the very crises it claims to combat."

As Parmar described in a subsequent HistPhil post summarizing the Economy and Society article, his analysis of the Hewlett Foundation "broadly covers the period of [Larry] Kramer's leadership but goes beyond it into early 2025."

In this virtual roundtable on October 19th, 2026, coordinated by the Miami Institute for the Social Sciences and HistPhil, Larry Kramer will be in dialogue with Inderjeet Parmar about the latter's characterization of the Foundation during Kramer's tenure as president (2012-2023).

Please register and join us for a rare opportunity to witness a shared public dialogue among a former foundation president and a critical scholar of that very same foundation.

This conversation between Larry Kramer and Inderjeet Parmar will be moderated by Maribel Morey, executive director at the Miami Institute for the Social Sciences and co-editor of HistPhil.