“Tanner Lectures Explore Philosophy vs. Literature” plus 1 more |
| Tanner Lectures Explore Philosophy vs. Literature Posted: 09 Mar 2011 01:57 PM PST Published: March 9, 2011  Rebecca Newberger Goldstein New Haven, Conn. — Renowned novelist, philosopher, and professor Rebecca Newberger Goldstein will explore the ancient battlefield where philosophy and literature have long contended to solve the meaning of life in this term's Tanner Lectures on Human Values at the Whitney Humanities Center (WHC), March 23-25. Goldstein will deliver the first lecture, "The Ancient Quarrel: Philosophy and Literature," on Wednesday, March 23, and her second, of the same title, on Thursday, March 24. Both will take place at 5 p.m. in the auditorium of WHC, 53 Wall St. The lectures will be followed on Friday, March 25, by a panel discussion, "Can a Novelist Write Philosophically?" Moderated by Amy Hungerford and featuring Goldstein, philosopher Harry Frankfurt, and novelist Michael Cunningham, the panel will be held at 10:30 a.m. in the WHC auditorium. Goldstein's career bridges the divides between the humanities, arts and sciences. Equally comfortable discussing physics or fiction, she is also a major voice in the current debates between religion and science. When she was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow, the foundation singled out the unique role her work plays in today's culture, noting: "Rebecca Goldstein is a writer whose novels and short stories dramatize the concerns of philosophy without sacrificing the demands of imaginative story-telling. . . . Goldstein's writings emerge as brilliant arguments for the belief that fiction in our time may be the best vehicle for involving readers in questions of morality and existence." Her first novel, "The Mind-Body Problem," was both a critical and commercial success. Her subsequent novels include "The Late-Summer Passion of a Woman of Mind"; "The Dark Sister"; "Mazel"; and "Properties of Light: A Novel of Love, Betrayal, and Quantum Physics." Her collection of short stories, "Strange Attractors," won a National Jewish Book Honor Award. Her nonfiction work "Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Gödel" was featured in The New Yorker and the New York Times, and was named one of the best books of the year by Discover magazine and the Chicago Tribune, among others. Her philosophical biography, "Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity," received the 2006 Koret International Jewish Book Award. Goldstein's most recent novel, "36 Arguments for the Existence of God," published in 2010, has been critically acclaimed. In 2008 she was designated "humanist laureate" by the International Academy of Humanism and was awarded an honorary doctorate by Emerson College. Currently she is a research associate in the Department of Psychology at Harvard and has been named Humanist of the Year 2011 by the American Humanist Association. Michael Cunningham, who will join Goldstein in the panel discussion on March 25, is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the novels "A Home at the End of the World," "Flesh and Blood," "The Hours," and "Specimen Days." He teaches creative writing at Yale. A former Yale faculty member, Frankfurt is professor emeritus of philosophy at Princeton and author of the bestselling book "On Bullshit," an examination of the concept in our culture. His most recent work is the companion volume "On Truth." Hungerford is professor of English at Yale. Her focus is on American literature since 1945. The Tanner Lectures on Human Values were established by the American scholar, industrialist, and philanthropist Obert Clark Tanner, who hoped that these lectures would contribute to the intellectual and moral life of humankind. Both lectures and the panel discussion are free and open to the public. For more information contact Susan Stout at 203 432-6556 or susan.stout@yale.edu. PRESS CONTACT: Dorie Baker 203-432-1345 This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
| Volz is practicing the dangerous philosophy of relativism Posted: 10 Mar 2011 02:08 AM PST In response to Joe Volz ("State lawmakers should allow gay people to wed," March 3), here's something you need to understand. Someone who rationalizes a same-sex sexual act as not immoral or unnatural has the mindset of the dangerous philosophy of relativism. This kind of thought has no moral compass or principals to guide beliefs, thoughts or actions. Why should any open-minded rational thinking person ever respect a person with twisted sensibilities? This same-sex marriage concept is nothing but an affront to moral certitude by the desire of homosexuals' immorality to be accepted. A society built on a government that allows unbridled freedoms by basing their principals and laws on relativism is doomed to anarchy of a debased valueless corrigible mindset. Therefore, you have the decline of Greece, Rome, Maryland, and the United States. And ultimately, the family and life. Dennis Parker, Mount Airy This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
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