Hi Everyone!

I hope you all enjoyed our meeting on Sunday as much as I did – it was so good to see so many of you there!

Below, I’ve provided a summary of what we decided at the meeting with regard to the Symposium. This is NOT a full summary of our discussion (which I encourage you all to continue on the blog!). Instead, I’ve recapped just the details related to Symposium structure.

Working Title: The Two Cultures: Fifty Years Later Date: Saturday, February 28

Seminar Groups: I. Name/topic: “What makes a culture/roots of the division/Language, specialization, and biological mechanism” Presenters: Chris, Anna, Drew, Carlos Group leader: Drew

II. Name/topic: “A case study: Body vs soul” Presenters: Chantelle, Ian, Charles, Ece(?) Group leader: Chantelle

III. Name/topic: “Two other cultures” Presenters: Melissa/Stephen/Runbin (Academia vs the public), Laura/Denver (Science vs religion), Beth/Kristina (Environmental science vs environmental activism) Group leader: Melissa

IV. Name/topic: “Where are we now?/Connections, communication, and community” Presenters: Anthony (+ general discussion) Group leader: Anthony…

Keynote Speaker Suggestions:

1. Public Relations/NY Times Science writer suggested by the Nic School (please post a name and possibly bio to the blog)

2. Professor Anthony Kelley (Dept. of Music, Duke)

3. Ray Barfield (Duke Div School/Med School prof)

4. Jeff Baker

5. Alex Roland

Other Responsibilities:

1. Poster/Chronicle ad design – Anna and Chris [suggested idea: tree]

2. Program – Runbin and Phyllis

3. Invitations – Louisa and Chinika

4. Nametags – Jodi-Renee and Ga-young

5. Food – Jodi-Renee and the Grad Mentors

If any of this information is incomplete or incorrect, please let me know (I was taking notes furiously and may have missed/miswritten something). Additionally, anyone who was not at the meeting or who has since decided that they would like to present is welcome to join any group. Please just let me know what you’d like to do and I’ll put you in touch with the right people.

Note that EVERYONE is expected to participate (by presenting, organizing, or at the very least attending) the Symposium. Finally, please continue to suggest any additional Keynote speakers on the blog. That’s it for tonight – happy evenings! ~ Melissa G.

Symposium Group I ideas

Hey Unis,

Here is a brief summary of the Group I ideas.

Group I Description:

Our group aims to describe the factors influencing culture and specialization within cultures, including language, regional, and discipline-specific influences. If you’d like to join our group, think about ways you can describe the factors that affect culture formation and the reasons why we create cultural or specialization divisions.

Here is a summary of our notes from the first meeting (brainstormed):

1) Define culture
- tools you use to investigate/describe/solve problems
- elements of culture:
- identity
- language
Book: Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn- Carlos, could you follow up with this?
- paradigm defined by people in it, what they’re looking at
- isolation of a particular field
- Why do people draw dichotomies? – Drew, could you follow up with this?
- value of specialization and practical use of categorization
- Why do we study?
- academic vs. non-academic
- “less practical” vs. practical applications of knowledge
- natural philosophy —> science
- “Western” philosophy
- continual process – changing classifications of fact vs. speculation
- microcultures

2) Possible structure for Presentation
- history
- phylogeny
- microcultures

segue from the definition of culture and the elements therein to focus on specialization and microcosms of culture within the umbrella structure

I hope this will spark some thoughts! Feel free to post directly to the blog with comments/ideas/suggestions/presentation ideas, or feel free to email me at anna.brown@duke.edu as well. I also have an email list with all of the members of Group I, which I have posted below in case you’d like to contact the other members in our group.

Take care,

Anna

Here are the emails of everyone in Group I:

anna.brown@duke.edu,
Carlos <cm136 [ at ] duke.edu>,
cjw22 [ at ] duke.edu,
David Honig <david.honig [ at ] duke.edu>,
Drew Marticorena <drew.marticorena [ at ] duke.edu>,
pdm6 [ at ] duke.edu

Stanley Fish, “The Last Professor,” asks “Will the Humanities Save Us?”

Stanley Fish, a former professor of English and Law at Duke, now Davidson-Kahn Distinguished University Professor and a professor of law at Florida International University, in Miami, and frequent contributor to the editorial pages of the New York Times, has written several columns about the current state of the humanities in today’s American university system.  Three articles highlighted below segue well into this year’s symposium theme, “Two Cultures: 50 Years Later,” especially the challenges posed to the humanities in particular in today’s corporate-styled university.   The articles review recent publications addressing the crisis in the humanities, with Fish’s special spin on the topic.

In January 6, 2008 article, “Will the Humanities Save Us?”, Fish reviewed Anthony Kronman’s book, “Education’s End: Why Our Colleges and Universities Have Given Up on the Meaning of Life.”  Fish rejects Kronman’s premise that the humanities ennoble the human spirit and that this is the ultimate purpose of the humanities.  Fish counters by saying that the humanities are their own good and that there is no reason to justify their existence because justification diminishes this purpose.

In a subsequent follow-up article, “The Uses of the Humanities, Part Two,” Fish expands on this argument, in response to readers’ comments on his previous blog post.  He explains his own reasons for pursuing humanistic study, namely his delight in solving the puzzles of language and his admiration of the linguistic prowess demonstrated in literary texts.   Significantly, he distinguishes the “humanities” from works of “literature, philosophy, and history,” something that C.P. Snow failed to do in his “Two Cultures” lecture.  Snow pitted scientific inquiry against literary production, not against the study of humanistic texts.  It is the merits of the latter that Fish undertakes to articulate, merits difficult to pinpoint unless, as commenters pointed out, one highlights the importance of the humanities in cultivating critical thinking skills, which make people “more interesting and informed.”   The French hostesses of the salons of the 17th and 18th centuries would be delighted to have such skilled and intriguing interlocutors amongst their attendees.  Are we today?

This past weekend, Fish posted a review of Frank Donoghue’s new book, “The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities.” In this article,  “The Last Professor” , Fish agrees with Donaghue, his former student, about the pessimistic chances for the humanities in the future.  Today’s corporate universities emphasize the importance of “usefulness,” of courses that deliver “the information and skills necessary to gain employment,” and pay mere lip-service to the ideals of the liberal arts education.  The humanities, in this universe, are not pragmatic or purposeful, and are thus doomed.  So, I guess the answer to this post’s titular question is, sadly, “No.”  Say it ain’t so, Stan!

Tori L.

Zeitgeist – An “Inconvenient Perspective”

After Denver’s introduction to the film “Zeitgeist”, I finally decided to watch the production in its entirety (mainly due to the liberty provided by the THREE DAY WEEKEND).

Here is the film:

Thought-provoking.

On the other hand, the movie should be viewed with a critical eye, for the “facts” the movie presents are to be checked for accuracy.

- Runbin

New York Times Contact

The contact I mentioned at the meeting that was interested in hearing more about our Two Cultures symposium was Cornelia Dean, Science Writer and former Science Editor of the New York Times. For a lecture at Nicholas last fall, she used “The Two Cultures” as a springboard for a discussion of science writing and public understanding of science. I spoke to her about our symposium and she wanted me to get in touch with her with more info when I could, as she does find “The Two Cultures” of interest.

Video of the lecture is posted here.

She also wrote the book, “Against the Tide: The Battle for American’s Beaches” which was published in 1999 by Columbia University Press and was a N.Y. Times Notable Book of the year.

Here’s links to her recent articles.

I couldn’t find a full bio, but some might find interesting her essay on being a female science editor and the experiences of women trying to break into mathematics in academia, written in the wake of Larry Summer’s unfortunate remarks a couple of years ago:

I’m not sure what her situation would be regarding a keynote. She may require travel, though I know she has family in the area and so may come down frequently. I would like to let her know about the symposium in advance, whether she is interested in the keynote or not.

Cheers,

Beth