Herman Beavers Lecture Announced (note the date change)

The Philomathean Society Announces
a lecture by
Dr. Herman Beavers
entitled
"Bigger Goes to the Movies: Turbulence and Spectacle
in Wright's Native Son"

Wednesday, April 30, 2008
6:00 P.M.
The Philomathean Society Halls,
(see www.philomathean.org for directions)
Refreshments will be served.

Biography from Professor Beavers' website:
Herman Beavers came to Penn from Yale University, where he received his doctorate in American Studies in 1990 with a specialization in African American Literature. He is the author of Wrestling Angels into Song: The Fictions of Ernest J. Gaines and James Alan McPherson, which was published in 1995 by the University of Pennsylvania Press. He also has a chap-book of poems, A Neighborhood of Feeling (1986) from Doris Publications. His poems have appeared in Black American Literature Forum, Whiskey Island, Rain, Cave Canem I and II, Dark Phrases, and the Cincinnati Poetry Review. Professor Beavers teaches courses in African American and American literature, including courses dealing with the South and (along with Professor Elisa New) African- and Jewish-American literature. He values dialogue in classroom settings and thinks it is important for students to talk to one another about writing and literature. He also believes that his courses are much more about questions than static answers, especially when it comes to matters of race, gender, and class. And despite having very well-defined ideas about the kind of literature he enjoys, Professor Beavers likes to think he is open to persuasion.

"Dead Hoosiers" are re-animated at the Philomathean Society, April 2nd

The Philomathean Society Presents:
DEAD HOOSIERS

A Lecture by Dr. Daniel Traister,
Curator, Research Services, Walter H. and Leonore Annenberg Rare Book and Manuscript Library
on
April 2nd, 2008
at Six O'Clock P.M.
in the Philomathean Halls (4th Floor College Hall, see www.philomathean.org for directions)

Light refreshments will be served, as always

Daniel Traister, a curator in Penn's Rare Book and Manuscript Library, has long been interested in why some books live and others -- most of them -- die.

"Dead Hoosiers" concerns some books written by Indianans that didn't make it. Traister is not an Indianan. He comes from New York, and his degrees come from Colby College (Waterville, Maine), New York University, and Columbia University. He occasionally teaches classes for the Department of English at Penn and for the Rare Book School at the University of Virginia.

For more information, one is directed towards Traister's home page: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~traister/

Karen Detlefsen Lecture Announced

The Philomathean Society Presents
A Lecture by Professor Karen Detlefsen entitled
"Custom, Authority and Cartesianism: Mary Astell's Philosophy of Education"
March 5, 2008
6:00 PM
The Philomathean Halls

For more on Professor Detlefsen, see her website

Elisabeth Camp Lecture Announced

BETWEEN THE LINES: Imagining Perspectives on Fiction and Life
A Lecture by Dr. Elisabeth Camp (Philosophy)
Thursday, February 21st, 2008
6 PM
The Philomathean Halls, 4th Floor College Hall (see www.philomathean.org)



Dr. Camp receieved her PhD from the Philosophy Department at UC Berkeley in 2003. She spent the next three years at Harvard, in the Society of Fellows, and joined the Department of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania in the Fall of 2006. She went to to college at the University of Michigan, and graduated in 1993 with a double major in Philosophy and English. Her research focuses on mental states that don't fit the usual philosophical model of propositional thought, and in the expression of such states.

Being of sound mind: Philo presents Ramsey and Bernstein: two lectures on music

On February 7th and February 13th, the Philomathean Society will present two lectures on the study of music.

February 7th-- Can the Object Speak?: The Visual and the Audible in African American Music


A lecture by Dr. Guthrie P. Ramsey Jr., associate professor of music history and Africana studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He specializes in African-American and American music, jazz, cultural studies, popular music, film studies, and historiography. His book, Race Music: Black Cultures from Bebop to Hip-Hop, was named outstanding book of 2003 by IASPM (International Association for the Study of Popular Music), U.S. A. His current projects include books about jazz pianist Bud Powell and singer/songwriter Curtis Mayfield. He has published in Black Music Research Journal, The Musical Quarterly, Journal of Popular Music Studies, The Black Scholar, Callaloo, American Music, American Quarterly, Journal of the American Musicological Society, The New York Times and The Village Voice. Ramsey has held visiting professorships at Harvard University and Princeton University. His band, Dr. Guy’s MusiQologY, released Y the Q? in 2007 and has toured internationally performing its unique brand of soul, pop, and fusion influenced jazz.

February 13th-- Johannes Ockeghem and the Sands of Time: Musical Texture and Cultural Change



A lecture by Dr. Lawrence F. Bernstein, professor of Music, and specialist in music of the Renaissance.

Bernstein's research has focused primarily on the music of Johannes Ockeghem and Josquin des Prez, and on the French chanson of the 16th century. More recently, he has begun to work on the 18th-century symphony, concentrating on the symphonic finales of Joseph Haydn and on the latter's influence on the music of such composers as Antonio Rosetti and Ignaz Pleyel. A retrospective collection of his essays on the chanson is to be published by the Centre d'Etudes Superieurs de la Renaissance in Tours.

He served as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the American Musicological Society (1975-77), as a member of the editorial board of the New Josquin Edition (1982-94), and as the founding editor of AMS Studies in Music.

Both lectures will begin at 6 PM in the Philomathean Halls (4th Floor College Hall). Refreshments will be served.

Symposium on Terrorism Announced

The Philomathean Society
presents

Terrorism: The Science, Weapons, and Politics of Fear

A multi-disciplinary symposium featuring:
Dr. M. Susan Lindee (History & Sociology of Science, Author of Suffering Made Real: American Science and the Survivors at Hiroshima.)
Dr. Ian Lustick (Political Science, Author of Trapped in the War on Terror)
Dr. Stanley Plotkin, M.D. (Wistar Institute, Author of "Vaccines")
Dr. Harvey Rubin, M.D. , (Director, Penn’s Institute for Strategic Threat Analysis and Response)

February 20th
6:00 P.M.
in the Philomathean Halls (4th Floor of College Hall, see website for directions)

Dr. M. Susan Lindee is a native Texan who received her undergraduate degree in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin. She was a journalist for ten years before she pursued graduate study at Cornell University, where she earned a Ph.D in History and Philosophy of Science. Her research focuses on twentieth-century biological and biomedical sciences, particularly radiation biology, human genetics and genomics. Her books include Moments of Truth: Genetic Disease in American Culture (2004), Genetic Nature/Culture: Anthropology and Science Beyond the Two Culture Divide (2003), The DNA Mystique: The gene as a cultural icon (1995), and Suffering Made Real: American Science and the Survivors at Hiroshima (1994). She teaches about science and gender, science and war, and the history of American science. She is a sea kayaker and birdwatcher.

Dr. Ian S. Lustick is Professor of Political Science and Director of Graduate Studies in the Political Science Department at the University of Pennsylvania where he holds the Bess W. Heyman Chair. He has authored or edited more than twenty books. His latest book is Trapped in the War on Terror (2006). His other books include Unsettled States, Disputed Lands: Britain and Ireland, France and Algeria, Israel and the West Bank and Gaza (1993); and For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel (1994). His articles have been published in leading journals, including Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, World Politics, American Political Science Review, International Organization, Middle East Journal, Journal of Israeli History, and Middle East Policy. He is a recipient of awards from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Social Science Research Council, and the United States Institute of Peace. Dr. Lustick is a founder and past President of the Association for Israel Studies. He is the originator of the PS-I computational modeling platform and a leader in the application of agent-based modeling techniques to problems in the social sciences. He has worked in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research and has been a consultant on Middle East and national security affairs for each of the last seven American administrations.

Dr. Stanley Plotkin is currently an advisor at the pharmaceutical firm Sanofi Pasteur and is an emeritus professor at the Wistar Institute where he conducted research on the rubella vaccine. He is also an emeritus professor of pediatrics at the Univeristy of Pennsylvania. He has served senior assistant surgeon with the Epidemic Intelligence Service, United States Public Health Service; director of Infectious Diseases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia; and associate chairman of the Department of Pediatrics. Dr. Plotkin investigated the last known outbreak of inhalation anthrax prior to the terrorist events of 2001 and helped demonstrate the efficacy of the current anthrax vaccine. He has also written “Vaccines,” a standard reference book. Over the course of his career Dr. Plotkin has been awarded the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, the Sabin Foundation Medal, the French Legion Medal of Honor, the Clinical Virology Award, the Pan American Group for Rapid Viral Diagnosis, the Distinguished Physician Award, the Pediatric Infectious Disease Society and the Bruce Medal of the American College of Physicians.

Dr. Harvey Rubin is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and holds secondary appointments as Professor in the Department of Microbiology, School of Medicine and as Professor of Computer and Information Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. He is Associate Dean for Student Affairs in the School of Medicine, Chair of the School of Medicine Committee on Appointments and Promotions, a member of the School of Medicine Curriculum Committee and won the Donald B. Martin, MD Teaching Service Award in 1996. He is also the Director of Penn’s Institute for Strategic Threat Analysis and Response (ISTAR). His research focuses on the genetics and metabolic networks of tuberculosis.

A Lecture by Professor Robert Vitalis, January 31st

The Philomathean Society announces a lecture by Professor Robert Vitalis of the Political Science department entitled:

Race, Empire, and the Origins of American International Relations

or

Why Do All the White Political Scientists Sit Together at the Professional Meetings?

January 31st 2008
6 o Clock PM
Refreshments will be served.

Professor Vitalis is the author of America's Kingdom: Mythmaking on the Saudi Oil Frontier and When Capitalists Collide. He teaches classes on American Foreign Policy, Middle Eastern Politics, and International Relations. He is the recipient of fellowships from The American Research Center in Egypt, the Social Science Research Council, the Woodrow Wilson Center, the American Council of Learned Societies, The International Center for Advanced Studies, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Shelby Cullom Davis Center. In 1996, the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations awarded him a Bernath Prize for his work on Egyptian political economy (from his website).

This is sure to be a fantastic event. Below are some articles on and by Professor Vitalis:

"No 'Miracles' in the desert" by Tim Hyland (Penn Current article on Vitalis' research on American empire)

"In Princes' Pockets" by Tariq Ali (London Review of Books review of America's Kingdom)

"International Studies in America" by Robert Vitalis (part of the Social Science Research Council's Roundtable on Rethinking International Studies in a Changing Global Context)

Dr. Mary Frances Berry Lecture Announced

Dr. Mary Frances Berry, Geraldine R. Segal Professor of American Social Thought and Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania will be giving a lecture in the Philomathean Society Halls at 6 O'Clock P.M. on January 29th, 2008. All are welcome to attend.

"[Dr. Berry] was appointed by President Carter and confirmed by the Senate as a Commissioner on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. After President Reagan fired her for criticizing his civil rights policies, she sued him and won reinstatement in federal district court. In 1993, President Clinton designated her Chairperson of the Civil Rights Commission. She was reappointed to a six-year term in January, 1999. She resigned from the Commission on December 7, 2004.

During Dr. Berry's tenure as Chairperson, the Commission issued a number of significant reports including 2000 Florida Presidential Elections, police practices in New York City, environmental justice, percentage plans and affirmative action, church burnings, and conditions on Indian reservations." -from her website.

This is sure to be a phenomenal event; all are encouraged to attend!

As always, refreshments will be served.

Sic Itur ad Oratio

Upcoming Lectures

The Philomathean Society Announces Some Upcoming Lectures

January 31st- Robert Vitalis- Professor of Political Science, Author of America's Kingdom: Mythmaking on the Saudi Oil Frontier and When Capitalists Collide

February 7th- Guthrie Ramsey- Associate Professor of Music, Author of Race Music

February 13th- Lawrence Bernstein- Professor of Music, specialist in Renaissance Music

All lectures will begin at 6:00 P.M. in the Philomathean Halls (University of Pennsylvania, College Hall, 4th Floor). As always, refreshments will be provided.

Check back for more information soon.

While you're waiting for the 2008 Season of Philo lectures to kick off...

Vali Nasr, lecturer at Philo's 2007 Annual Oration, has just published an incisive article in the upcoming issue of Foreign Affairs (January/February). Nasr, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, levies an informed critique of current policy towards Iran that assumes a kind of monolithic politics in the Middle East.



Here's an excerpt:
"Washington's reliance on reviving the Middle East peace process as the linchpin of its strategy to contain Iran is also problematic. Bush administration officials are assuming that resumed diplomacy between Israel and its neighbors will assuage the Arab street, rally Arab governments behind the United States, and lay the groundwork for a united Arab-Israeli front against Iran. But this hope disregards the fact that in their current state, Palestinian and Israeli politics will not support the types of compromises necessary for a credible breakthrough. Both Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas are too weak to press their constituencies toward the painful concessions that a viable peace compact would require. The expectations of Arab leaders far exceed those of Israel and the United States: while they have been openly demanding final-status negotiations, Secretary Rice has been talking only about creating momentum toward peace."


You can read the full article here.
Sic Itur ad Oratory

Documentation: An Examination for Critics

In 1917, the late Clayton Hamilton proposed that the following test be administered to dramatic critics.

1.) Have you ever stood bareheaded in the nave of Amiens?
2.) Have you ever climbed to the Acropolis by moonlight?
3.) Have you ever walked with whispers into the hushed presence of the Frari Madonna of Bellini?

To receive your free Philomathean Society Rosetta Stone decoder ring, submit your answers by post to:

The Philomathean Society
Attn: The Committee on Mediating with Clayton Hamilton's Spirit
Box H
College Hall
The University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104

Post the First: On Blogging

As the Second Censor of the Philomathean Society, it is my distinct privilege to bring you a phirst (and perhaps last?) experiment in Phi-blogging. Briefly, this blog will act as an online repository for up-to-the-minute information about events at Philo, complete with biographical sketches of upcoming lecturers, links to recordings of lectures (courtesy of our Audio Ministry), as well as--when possible--pertinent textual reproductions of events in the Halls. In addition, it is my hope that all visitors to the Halls will use the "comments" portion of this blog to voice their opinions about our lectures, initiate debates, and in general respond to the Society's offerings throughout the semester.