The opening night of Season Six brings together two esteemed newswomen, photojournalist Susan Meiselas and writer Elizabeth Rubin. For decades, their work in strife-torn regions around the world has helped the rest of us see behind closed doors and beyond borders. Through words and images, they have exposed human rights violations and profiled a wide variety of influential figures, from world leaders to artists and strippers, from criminals to political activists.

Sponsored by The Betty E. and Chester C. Thompson Foundation

$25

Photojournalist Susan Meiselas joined Magnum Photos in 1976 and has worked as a freelance photographer since then. She is best known for her coverage of the insurrection in Nicaragua and her extensive documentation of human rights issues in Latin America, as well as her photographs of American carnival strippers. Meiselas has had one-woman exhibitions in Paris, Madrid, Amsterdam, London, Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, and her awards include the Robert Capa Gold Medal, the Leica Award for Excellence; the Engelhard Award from the Institute of Contemporary Art, the Hasselblad Foundation Photography Prize, and the Harvard Arts Medal. She has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and a MacArthur Fellowship. Meiselas has served as president of the Magnum Foundation since its founding in 2007.

Elizabeth Rubin has covered conflict around the world for two decades, reporting from South Asia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe for the New York Times Magazine, the New Republic, the New Yorker, Harper’s, the Atlantic, Bidoun, Vogue, and other publications. Her honors include the Livingston Award, the Bayeux-Calvados Award, and the Kurt Schork Award. She has been a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and an Edward R. Murrow Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. She is currently at work on Studio Kabul, a film about Afghan soap opera actresses; and a book about three men who tried to change the world: one with guns, one with the law, and one with social media, storytelling, and faith.