2012-2013 SERIES
Metaphors We Die By: The Normative Power of Language in Bioethics
a lecture by
Dr. Assya Pascalev
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
4:00p.m.
Letts Formal Lounge (see AU Maps)
Dr. Pascalev is a Scholar-in-Residence at American University.
Ethics of Expression: A Japanese Response to Modernity
a lecture by
Dr. Gereon Kopf
Thursday, March 28, 2013
2:30p.m.
Butler Boardroom (see AU Maps)
In the wake of the Meiji Restoration (1868), many Japanese intellectuals contrasted their own tradition with what they perceived to be the essence of European and American thought, especially modernism. Particularly the philosophers of the so-called Kyoto school formulated their philosophical approach as a response to, first, German idealism and, then, phenomenology. Some of these philosophers received their inspiration from ideas, concepts, and even texts of the Buddhist tradition. This talk will explore in what ways (if at all) a philosophical ethics based on the foundational concepts of Kitar? Nishida (1870-1945), the founder of the Kyoto School, can be of relevance today. In particular, this talk will use Nishida's concept of "expression" to develop an ethics based on the notion of the "ecological self."
Gereon Kopf received his Ph.D. from Temple University and is currently Associate Professor of Asian and Comparative Religion at Luther College. As a research fellow of the Japan Foundation and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, he conducted research in 1993 and 1994 at Obirin University in Machida, Japan, and at the Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture in Nagoya, Japan, from 2002 to 2004. In the academic year of 2008-2009, he taught at the Centre of Buddhist Studies at the University of Hong Kong. He is the author of Beyond Personal Identity (2001), the co-editor of Merleau-Ponty and Buddhism (2009), and the editor of the Journal of Buddhist Philosophy.
Rethinking the Public and the Private in Global Civil Society
a panel discussion
Thursday, April 4, 2013
2:00p.m.
SIS Founders Room
The forces of globalization have returned fundamental questions about the proper place of religion in the public sphere to the foreground of political theory. Please join us for a panel discussion of experts as we explore how the emergence of civil society at the global scale has created new public spaces for religion and religious organizations.
Hosted by:
Dr. Evan Berry
Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Religion and Co-Director of the Ethics, Peace, and Global Affairs Master's Program at American University
Featuring:
Jose Casanova
Professor of Sociology at Georgetown University and Head of Berkley Center's Program on Globalization
Katherine Marshall
Senior Fellow at Berkley Center's Program for Religion, Peace and World Affairs and Visiting Professor in the School of Foreign Service
Susan McDonic
Assistant Professor of Sociology at American University
Painting Borges: Philosophy Interpreting Art Interpreting Literature
a gallery talk byDr. Jorge J. E. Gracia
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
6:30p.m.
American University Museum (see AU Maps)
Argentinean Jorge Borges is one of the most prominent and profoundly philosophical literary figures of the twentieth century. Curator Jorge J. E. Gracia chose sixteen visual artists to interpret twelve stories by Borges, organized according to three topics: identity and memory, freedom and destiny, and faith and divinity. Dr. Gracia is Samuel P. Capen Chair and Distinguished Professor, Departments of Philosophy and of Comparative Literature, at State University of New York at Buffalo.
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Weaving the Aztec Cosmos: The Metaphysics of the Fifth Age
a lecture by
Dr. Jim Maffie
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
2:30 p.m.
EQB 203 (see AU Maps)
Dr. Jim Maffie is Visiting Associate Professor at the University of Maryland where he teaches courses in philosophy, Latin American Studies, and American Studies. His book on Aztec metaphysics, Aztec Philosophy: Understanding a World in Motion, is forthcoming from the University of Colorado Press. Most recently he has published articles on Nahua philosophy in The Nahua Newsletter, Inter-American Journal of Philosophy, and the Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Latin American Philosophy.
Gender Lessons from the War on Terror
a lecture by
Dr. Bonnie Mann
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
1:30 p.m.
Butler Boardroom (see AU Maps)
Dr. Bonnie Mann is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oregon.
Motion versus Activity: Heidegger on Aristotle's Ontology of Life
a lecture by
Dr. Francisco Gonzalez
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
7:00p.m.
Butler Boardroom (see AU Maps)
Dr. Gonzalez is a Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Ottawa.
2011-2012 SERIES
Philosophy Career Night
Thursday, February 16, 2012
6:30-9:00 p.m.
Battelle Atrium (see AU Maps)
Students passionate about philosophy are invited to participate in a panel discussion with alumni, faculty, and students from our department. Receive career-related tips and advice from alumni who have launched diverse and rewarding careers with organizations, including the U.S. Department of Commerce and E.L. Haynes Public Charter School.
Co-sponsored with AU's Career Center
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Thursday, February 23, 20012
11:00 a.m.
McDowell Formal Lounge
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What Makes Food Good? Three Challenges in Food Ethics
a lecture by
Paul B. Thompson
W.K. Kellogg Chair in Agricultural, Food and Community Ethics
Michigan State University
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
3:00 p.m.
Mary Graydon Center 200
The diversity of issues that arise in food ethics will be explored with short discussions of three problems. First, improving agriculture and ending hunger are central to development ethics, but there is a fundamental tension between the interests of farmers and of poor people in urban areas. During the Great Depression, this tension was reflected in the irony of "breadlines knee deep in wheat." Although developed nations like the United States have moved beyond the most basic version of this problem, it is far from clear that our current farm and food policies have truly solved it. Second, there is a growing recognition that American diets are contributing to increased rates of diabetes and heart disease. But how should this phenomenon be viewed from an ethical perspective? Contrary to suggestive scientific results, Americans tend to view the problem narrowly as a personal responsibility of prudence, rather than as a moral issue. Finally, although it has long been realized that food practices vary widely by culture, it is unclear how diverse food cultures should be viewed from the perspective of ethics. Are food choices protected by an individual's "right to choose?" Or do they interpenetrate into cultural identities so deeply that they should be viewed as "cultural resources" worthy of protection and preservation? And what are the implications of viewing food culture in one way rather than another? These three problems will be reviewed briefly to give a general overview of the terrain of food ethics, and concluding remarks will focus on how the issues intersect in food ethics, and on how a program in the bioethics of food might inform policy and public health.
Paul B. Thompson holds the W. K. Kellogg Chair in Agricultural, Food and Community Ethics at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. He formerly held positions in philosophy at Texas A&M University and Purdue University. His research has centered on ethical and philosophical questions associated with agriculture and food, and especially concerning the guidance and development of agricultural technoscience. This research focus has led him to undertake a series of projects on the application of recombinant DNA techniques to agricultural crops and food animals. Thompson published the first booklength philosophical treatment of agricultural biotechnology in 1997 and revised in 2007, and has traveled the world speaking on the subject, delivering invited addresses in Egypt, Thailand, Taiwan, Mexico, Israel and Jamaica, as well as a number of European countries. In addition to philosophical outlets, his work on biotechnology has appeared in technical journals including Plant Physiology, The Journal of Animal Science, Bioscience, and Cahiers d'Economie et Sociologie Rurales. He serves on the United States National Research Council's Agricultural Biotechnology Advisory Council and on the Science and Industry Advisory Committee for Genome Canada. Thompson's new work focuses on nanotechnology in the agrifood system.
In addition to his research on biotechnology, Thompson has published extensively on the environmental and social significance of agriculture. His 1992 book (with four coauthors) on U.S. agricultural policy, Sacred Cows and Hot Potatoes, was used as a textbook for U.S. Congressional agriculture staff.He is a two time recipient of the American Agricultural Economics Association Award for Excellence in Communication, and in 2010 he was a speaker at the Gustavus Adolphus College's 46th Nobel Conference on "Making Food Good." He has also published a number of volumes and papers on the philosophical and cultural significance of farming, notably The Spirit of the Soil: Agriculture and Environmental Ethics (1995) and The Agrarian Roots of Pragmatism (2000). In 2008, two edited collections appeared: What Can Nanotechnology Learn from Biotechnology: Social and Ethical Lessons for Nanoscience from the Debate over Agrifood Biotechnology and GMOs (edited with Ken David) and The Ethics of Intensification: Agricultural Technology and Cultural Change. A new book entitled The Agrarian Vision: Sustainability and Environmental Ethics was published by the University Press of Kentucky in July 2010. Thompson completed his Ph.D. studies on the philosophy of technology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook under the guidance of Don Ihde.
2010-2011 SERIES
Why Philosophy Still Matters
a lecture by
Michael Kellogg
Author of Three Questions We Never Stop Asking (Prometheus 2010)
Thursday, February 17, 2011
3:30-5:30
Butler Boardroom
Michael Kellogg studied philosophy at Stanford and as a graduate student at Oxford. After graduating magna com laude from the Harvard Law School, where he was an editor on the Law Review, Kellogg clerked for Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist. He then took a job as a prosecutor in the New York U.S. Attorneys' office led by Rudy Giuliani, where he prosecuted drug dealers and mafia dons, including Paul Castellano, boss of the Gambino crime family.
Kellogg then entered the Solicitor General's office at the Department of Justice where he helped represent the United States before the U.S. Supreme Court and argued a number of important cases on national security and criminal law. He left government to be a partner in a large law firm, but quickly decided that he wanted more autonomy. In 1993, Kellogg started a law firm with two close friends and has been the managing partner ever since. The firm now has over 50 partners and associates and is considered one of the top litigation boutiques in the country. Kellogg continues to argue cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and in Courts of Appeal throughout the country.
Kellogg has also co-authored three successful books on legal topics, published first by Little Brown & Co. and then by Aspen, and has written articles on literary and philosophical topics for magazines such as The Hudson Review and Commonweal.
Kellogg's book, Three Questions We Never Stop Asking, published by Prometheus in 2010, has received much praise:
"Michael Kellogg's engaging and astute new book provides a perfect introduction to Western philosophy. Focusing on six great thinkers from Plato to Heidegger, he examines three inexhaustible themes of knowledge, faith, and morality, often revealing how powerful ideas emerged from the lives and times of these philosophers. This lucid, concise, and informed volume will connect many new readers to the irreplaceable insights of philosophy."
--Dana Gioia, poet and former Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts
"Michael Kellogg's passion for philosophy—the love of wisdom, not just an academic discipline—comes through on every page of this remarkable book. His readings of six great philosophers bring them to vivid life in clear, compelling words; his insights are keen, fresh, engaging, thoughtful. If you ever questioned what you should do or believe and wondered whether the great philosophers could help, you should read this book."
--Peter Pesic, St. John's College, Santa Fe, NM, author of Labyrinth: A Search for the Hidden Meaning of Science and Seeing Double: Shared Identities in Physics, Philosophy, and Literature
"In this elegant volume, Michael Kellogg distills the wisdom of the most important Western philosophers. Whether you are familiar with these ideas, or are encountering them for the first time here, you will profit from Kellogg's original synthesis."
Howard Gardner, Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education, and author of Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences.
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A Jamesian Personscape:
The Fringe as Messaging to the "Sick Soul"
a viewing and discussion of
John McDermott's lecture at the Harvard Divinity School
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
11:30
Butler Boardroom
2008-2009 Series
Custodianship, Communal Politics, and Religious Identity in Medieval South India
a lecture by Prabhavati Reddy
Adjunct, American University
January 29, 2009
2006-2007 SERIES
Rankism and a Dignitarian Society
a lecture by Robert Fuller
author of All Rise: Somebodies, Nobodies, and the Politics of Dignity
former President of Oberlin College
October 2, 2006
Robert Fuller earned his PhD in physics at Princeton University and taught at Columbia, where he co-authored the text Mathematics of Classical and Quantum Physics. He then served as president of Oberlin College, his alma mater. For a dozen years, beginning in 1978, he worked in what came to be known as "citizen diplomacy" to improve the Cold War relationship. During the 1990s, he served as board chair of the non-profit global corporation Internews, which promotes democracy via free and independent media. With the end of the Cold war and the collapse of the USSR, Fuller looked back reflectively on his career and understood that he had been, at different junctures in his life, a somebody and a nobody. His periodic sojourns into "Nobodyland" led him to identify and probe rankism-abuse of the power inherent in rank-and ultimately to write Somebodies and Nobodies: Overcoming the Abuse of Rank (New Society Publishers, 2003). Three years later, he has published a sequel that focuses on building a "dignitarian" society titled All Rise: Somebodies, Nobodies, and the Politics of Dignity (Berrett-Koehler, 2006).
2005-2006 SERIES
Wittgenstein as an Iceberg: Exploring the Jewish Depths
a lecture by Ranjit Chatterjee
author of Wittgenstein and Judaism: A Triumph of Concealment
March 28, 2006
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Moving Beyond Both Intolerance and Tolerance
a lecture by Dr. Gertrude Conway
Kline Chair of Philosophy, Mount Saint Mary's University
January 30, 2006
2004-2005 SERIES
Genetic Profiling
a lecture by Dr. Michael Boylan
John J. McDonnell, Jr. Chair in Ethics, Marymount University
October 20, 2004
Michael Boylan received his PhD from the University of Chicago. His most recent book, A Just Society (June, 2004), is his manifesto on ethics and social/political philosophy (and the most complete depiction of his normative worldview theory). He is also the author of Basic Ethics (2000), an essay on normative and applied ethics; Genetic Engineering: Science and Ethics on the New Frontier (2002, with Kevin E. Brown); Ethics Across the Curriculum: A Practice-Based Approach (2003, with James A. Donahue); and Public Health Policy and Ethics (ed. 2004); along with 13 other books in philosophy and literature and over seventy articles. He is the general editor of a series of trade books on public philosophy with Basil Blackwell Publishers and another series of books with Prentice Hall.
2003-2004 SERIES
What We Owe the Dead
a lecture by Dr. Dennis Schmidt
Professor of Philosophy, Pennsylvania State University
March 31, 2004
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Severe Poverty as a Human Rights Violation
a lecture by Dr. Thomas Pogge
Professor of Philosophy, Columbia University
March 1, 2004
2002-2003 SERIES
"Nationalism & Cosmopolitanism:
The Moral Response to International Terrorism"
Louis Pojman
Professor of Philosophy, West Point University
Tuesday, November 19, 2002
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"Tragedy, Comedy, and Ethical Action in Hegel's
Phenomenology of Spirit"
Marcos Bisticas-Cocoves
Professor of Philosophy, Morgan State University
October 17, 2002
2001-2002 SERIES
"Did Kant Read Plato's Euthyphro?"
Dr. Andrea Tschemplik
Department of Philosophy and Religion
November 28, 2001
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"Understanding Asian Philosophy in Multicultural America"
Dr. Jin Y. Park
Department of Philosophy and Religion
American University
October 17, 2001