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Learn from the wise ... 6 p.m. Wednesday, April 22nd event led by Alex Sandoval This week, discussion will be a bit different. Instead of a student presented topic, I have chosen to create a simple type of symposium. A majority of college students see professors only as educators and therefore, difficult to relate to. Let me clarify: You are more likely to "hang out" with your friends (who are of the same age as you) than a professor. However, professors have an abundance of knowledge that is not usually imprinted on their students in the classroom. For instance: their college experiences, their personal stories and their personal views. Professors from different fields will be invited to freely converse with the students. There will be no set topic. Lafayette boasts that it allows one on one interaction between students and professors. Many professors have changed student's lives not through class but the time after a class ends where a student freely converses with a professor. Why not do that on a larger scale and in a conducive atmosphere? I would like to invite as many people as possible and up to four professors. Desert other light snacks will be available. So please come down this Wednesday. |
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He is asking us to watch a video documentary which I found on the internet, but which might also be available at the library if you want to watch it on a bigger screen. Here's the link: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5277094596195828118 A short description about the documentary: Utilizing excerpts from the award-winning non-fiction text "A Small Place" by Jamaica Kincaid, Life & Debt is a woven tapestry of sequences focusing on the stories of individual Jamaicans whose strategies for survival and parameters of day-to-day existence are determined by the U.S. and other foreign economic agendas. By combining traditional documentary telling with a stylized narrative framework, the complexity of international lending, structural adjustment policies and free trade will be understood in the context of the day-to-day realities of the people whose lives they impact. http://www.lifeanddebt.org/about.html |
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JON ESSER I would like my discussion this Wednesday to concentrate on the psychological theory behind propaganda and advertising. I recently watched the first part of a documentary about Edward Bernays, Freud's American nephew, who pioneered modern theory of public relations. Basically, he wrote the book on how to make large numbers of people do and think what you want them to. The film is an hour long, but I hope you can find the time to watch most of it: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8953172273825999151 Also some background text on Bernays and his theories on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays The kinds of questions I am going to pose are going to be based of off the perspective that this kind of mass psychology teaches - that humans, for all our intelligence and reasoning, are doomed to irrational action. Surely humanities survival depends on an ability to balance our animalistic tendencies with civilized rationality. And can that be accomplished in a free society? Do we actually need our subliminal animal to be distracted by corporations and the state to be civilized? If the 20th century has shown us anything, the risk of our primitive inclinations are proportionate to the growth of our technology. This is a pretty broad topic right now. I'll work on focusing the premise and the discussion questions in the next few days. In the mean time, ponder Bernays' theories about human behavior and try to decide if you think its more pessimistic or realistic. |
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BELINDA SIBANDA President Obama recently lifted restrictions on federally funded research: "My hope, and the hope of so many in this country, is to provide our researchers with the means to explore the uses of embryonic stem cells so that we can begin to turn the tide on the devastating diseases affecting our nation and our world."- President Obama With the hopeful benefit of curing disease and offering hope to infertile couples, still a lot of questions arise, "Are we creating a world that we won't want to inhabit." The 60 minute documentary takes a look at the bigger picture of genetic engineering and raises most of the ethical questions that were in the forefront of the President Bush's decision to restrict stem cell research. |
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NATALIE JEREMIJENKO The 2009 John and Muriel Landis Lecture 8 p.m. Wednesday, March 11 - 104 Kirby Hall of Civil Rights Dr. Jeremijenko is --a designer, engineer, teacher, environmentalist, activist exploring non-violent socio-technical change, thinker with a background in biochemistry, physics, neuroscience, emerging technologies; 1999 Rockefeller Fellow, one of the Top 100 young innovators (MIT Technology Review); one of the 40 most influential designers (I.D. Magazine); director of NYU’s xdesign Environmental Health Clinic; associate professor of visual art in the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development; visiting professor at Royal College of Art, in London; artist not-in-residence at the Institute for the Future, Palo Alto; former visual arts faculty at UCSD, and director of Yale's Engineering Design Studio. At the xdesign Environmental Health Clinic, public discussions of environmental concerns like indoor and outdoor air quality, water quality, result in Jeremijenko offering prescriptions that include a mix of green design, engineering and art, things that can be done while waiting for larger societal solutions. Dr. Jeremijenko's work spans a range of media from statistical indices (the Despondency Index, which linked the Dow Jones to the suicide rate at the Golden Gate Bridge) to biological substrates (installations of cloned trees in pairs in various urban micro-climates) to robotics (feral robotic dog packs that investigated environmental hazards). Coupling art and environmental activism -- During the 2004 Republican National Convention, Dr. Jeremijenko organized a group of bicyclists to ride around NYC wearing air-filtering masks, as a comment on the government's Clear Skies Initiative. In ‘06 she installed a series of bird perches in the Whitney Museum's sculpture court. When birds landed on the perches, they set off computer sound files with comments on the interdependency of birds, other animals and people. |
What makes you happy? What makes people in general happy? Why are we happy? Why aren't we happy? Wikipedia version on happiness: Happiness forms a central theme of Buddhist teachings, which focuses on obtaining freedom from suffering by following the Eightfold Path. In the Buddhist view, ultimate happiness is only achieved by overcoming craving in all forms. Aristotle saw happiness as "the virtuous activity of the soul in accordance with reason," or the practice of virtue. In Catholicism, the ultimate end of human existence consists in felicity, or "blessed happiness", described by the thirteenth-century philosopher-theologian Thomas Aquinas as a Beatific Vision of God's essence in the next life.One psychological approach, positive psychology, describes happiness as consisting of positive emotions and positive activities. In most religions, happiness is the eternal reward for those who meet certain criteria. Here are some interesting TED Talks about happiness. Please view them before the discussion because it will make it much more interesting for you. Dan Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness, challenges the idea that we'll be miserable if we don't get what we want. Our "psychological immune system" lets us feel truly happy even when things don't go as planned. What is happiness, and how can we all get some? Biochemist turned Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard says we can train our minds in habits of well-being, to generate a true sense of serenity and fulfillment. Dan Gilbert presents research and data from his exploration of happiness -- sharing some surprising tests and experiments that you can also try on yourself. Watch through to the end for a sparkling Q&A with some familiar TED faces. |
Challenging Gender Norms Around the world, customs differ, but almost every society shares one thing the concept of gender. Many believe that there are only two: man and woman. But in India, transgendered men who cut off their genitals live as women and form a third gender. In rural Albania, women swap one gender for another to gain equality. Multi-gendered societies challenge two types of Western theory:- queer theory, which tends to focus on sexuality, and feminist theory, which tends to focus on social gender enactment. Neither theory is well-equipped for articulating the complexities of multiple gender identities and a multifarious gender system. We shall ponder on these issues and seek to find an answer to this and other questions: What is the inter-relation between sex and gender when the former has a biological and physiological basis while the former has a societal and cultural basis. Here's a brief synopsis of the documentary that Nat Geo ran: |
With the election of Barack Obama, many people are now wondering, "what next?" My discussion this week hopes to explore some of the possible paths that the Obama administration may take, particularly looking at prospective cabinet members, likely policy decisions, and what to do with all the people who mobilized so well for the campaign. Will this administration be something new and different, or will it turn into something like the Clinton years? I found some articles and positions pieces that deal with these issues, so if you want some info to bring in with you, take a look at any of these: An Obama Cabinet? Here's a Picture: Date: Wednesday, November 12th, 2008 |
Something intellectual (yet fun) for a change. I have an avid interest in paradoxes and paradoxical circumstances, and so I wanted to introduce to my fellow Reederites some of my favorite paradoxes and hear your responses to each of them. Links to a short description of each of these paradoxes is given below, and I encourage you all to read them and think a little bit about them before Wednesday's discussion. These paradoxes have given me many sleepless nights, and I still haven't really been able to satisfy myself with a strong explanation for any of them, so I hope we (being the scholars we all are :D), can come up with some answers on Wednesday night LINKS: Date: Wednesday, November 5th, 2008 |
China's Economy has experienced a development rather incredible in the recent past, transforming it's cities, technological infrastructure, and culture industry. China has risen to the level of a significant modern power. But what are the costs of this development? Is China's development sustainable? Is it ethical even? These are some interesting questions that we could discuss during our Wednesday discussion. I would recommend you to watch the China Rises Series and check the resources from the NY Times website. They provide a really good intro into the matter. Also, I have added one recent PBS documentary about the young generation in China. I have yet to watch it, but I think it will a worthwhile movie. RONTLINE: Young and Restless in China: Date: Wednesday, October 29nd, 2008
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Superstitions Around the World Are you superstitious? Why or why not? Date: Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008 |
China's Economy has experienced a development rather incredible in the recent past, transforming it's cities, technological infrastructure, and culture industry. China has risen to the level of a significant modern power. But what are the costs of this development? Is China's development sustainable? Is it ethical even? These are some interesting questions that we could discuss during our Wednesday discussion. I would recommend you to watch the China Rises Series and check the resources from the NY Times website. They provide a really good intro into the matter. Also, I have added one recent PBS documentary about the young generation in China. I have yet to watch it, but I think it will a worthwhile movie. RONTLINE: Young and Restless in China: Date: Wednesday, October 29nd, 2008
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Why has a barrel of oil dropped to 78 dollars when at the end of summer it was close to 150 dollars a barrel?
Are there new energy solutions that could end dependence on oil and/or stimulate economic growth?
Wind power?
Offshore Drilling?
Natural Gas?...
What are the plus and minuses of each energy solution?
What are the possible consequences on the economy of these new energy solutions?
In general how does the economy effect energy demand and consumption?
Date: Wednesday, October 15th, 2008
Description:
The election: does any of this matter to a Lafayette student? Which issues affect our decisions?
Here are some web sites to browse.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/26/debate.videos/index.html
http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/index.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73Yx-RhHb4g&feature=bz301
Date: Wednesday, October 1st, 2008
Description
Come join the Reeder Fellows in discussing social identity, what it means to us in our
every day lives, and what happens when our identities are threatened. This topic is
related to the recent lecture given by Prof Claude Steele of Stanford, but it is not
necessary to have attended his talk to come to ours.
This discussion is casual and open to everyone on campus. Our house, 225 Reeder Street,
is located just off of High Street, two blocks past WaWa. It's not that far. Really.
Take a look at the map in the photos section of this event. You can get in with a
checkpoint or ring the doorbell.
Date: Wednesday, February 27th, 2008