2026 Forum for the Academy and the Public Conference: “Oligarchy and Its Discontents.”

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What is familiar and what is novel about the way that small clusters of people— particularly, incredibly rich individuals—are currently influencing the course of governmental policy across the globe? How can we best place the intersection of wealth and power in the United States today into comparative and historical perspective? 

The 2026 conference of UCI’s Forum for the Academy and the Public will address such questions in a series of conversation-driven panels featuring, among others, journalists and scholars from a wide range of disciplines. Evan Osnos, New Yorker staff writer, will deliver the keynote on Friday afternoon. A prize-winning author and frequent commentator on public affairs programs, he will draw on material in his latest book, The Haves and Have Yachts: Dispatches on the Ultrarich (Simon and Schuster, 2025). Subsequent thematic panels and dialogues will explore a range of topics, from wealth and power in the Global South, to the role of international organizations and diplomacy in a world facing unprecedented and complex challenges—from Moscow and Managua to Bangkok and Beijing, as well as in our own backyards in Los Angeles and Orange counties.

January 30-31, 2026 l Humanities Gateway 1030 UC Irvine



 

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