http://www.simpsoncenter.org/katz/ en-us Recognizing distinguished scholars in the humanities and emphasizing the role of the humanities in liberal education. The University of Washington Education University of Washington Simpson Center for the Humanities uwch@u.washington.edu 28 Apr 2009 11:15:00 GMT http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/media/nehamas_podcast.mp3 http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/media/nehamas_podcast.mp3 17 Nov 2005 19:00:00 PDT Education Alexander Nehamas Princeton philosopher on beauty and aesthetics Alexander Nehamas (Princeton University) is an internationally-known philosopher whose broad range of scholarly interests include classical Greek philosophy, aesthetics, and literary theory. Recently he has addressed the question of why beauty has been discredited as a philosophical notion and has championed aesthetic values. Nehamas is particularly interested in Nietzsche’s integration of life and philosophy in the creation of self, which he calls the "art of living." He links this philosophical practice to a model that comes from classical Greece, and examines the influence of this Socratic tradition on later philosophers, including Montaigne, Nietzsche, and Foucault. no 54:58 nehamas,plato,socrates,nietzsche,symposium,philosophy,princeton http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/media/blau_podcast.mp3 http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/media/blau_podcast.mp3 28 Oct 2004 19:00:00 PDT Education Herbert Blau Innovative director speaks on growing up in Brooklyn. Herbert Blau (University of Washington) introduced American audiences to avant-garde drama in some of this country's very first productions of Beckett, Genet, and Pinter as co-founder of The Actor's Workshop in San Francisco and co-director of the Reperatory Theater of Lincoln Center. He extended the challenges of such cutting-edge work as artistic director of the experimental group KRAKEN. In this lecture, taken from his memoirs, Herbert Blau plumbs his beginnings in the mean and ugly Brooklyn streets and the unlikely connections that informed his subsequent life as a director, an educator, and a writer. no 1:00:42 blau,autobiography,right side of the tracks,theater,drama http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/media/thapar_podcast.mp3 http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/media/thapar_podcast.mp3 25 May 2005 19:00:00 PDT Education Romila Thapar Eminent historian of India Romila Thapar is one of the world's foremost experts on ancient Indian history. Thapar received her doctoral degree from London University in 1960 and returned to a newly independent India to pursue her teaching and scholarship. Her research on ancient India has evolved new ways of reading evidence from archaeology, mythology, literature, philosophy, ritual texts, folklore, and other sources. The results have yielded illuminating perspectives on contemporary India as well as new comparative and conceptual insights for historical studies more broadly. She was the Katz Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Humanities Spring Quarter 2005. no 52:24 romila,thapar,history,india,caste,historiography http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/media/sardar_podcast.mp3 http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/media/sardar_podcast.mp3 05 May 2005 19:00:00 PDT Education Ziauddin Sardar Writer, Critic, Polymath A writer, editor, broadcaster, and critical commentator on Islam, culture, and science, Ziauddin Sardar is one of the world’s leading Muslim public intellectuals. Born in Pakistan, raised and educated in Britain, he is currently Visiting Professor of Postcolonial Studies at the City University, London. Editor of Futures, a journal of forecasting, planning, and futures studies, and co-editor of Third Text, a prestigious journal of arts and visual culture, Sardar is also author of more than forty books on Islam, science policy, media, postcolonial and cultural studies, travel, and autobiography. no 29:22 Ziauddin,Sardar,islam,muslim,modernity http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/media/katz0506_salomon.mp3 http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/media/katz0506_salomon.mp3 26 Jan 2006 19:00:00 PDT Education Richard Salomon Professor of Asian Languages & Literature Richard Salomon has earned international recognition for his identification of the earliest surviving Buddhist texts, whose importance for Buddhist culture is comparable to that of the Dead Sea Scrolls for Judaism and early Christianity. Salomon also directs the Early Buddhist Manuscript Project, a groundbreaking collaboration between The British Library and the University of Washington dedicated to providing access -- in book and digital form -- to the unprecedented insights contained in these important texts. no 50:50 richard salomon,buddhism,buddha,ancient http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/media/katz0506_perloff.mp3 http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/media/katz0506_perloff.mp3 19 May 2004 19:00:00 PDT Education Marjorie Perloff Stanford critic on Modernism Perloff is one of America's most prominent critics of contemporary poetry. She is renowned for her study of the avant-garde and has written many books and essays on poetry. She has held many prominent positions, including the Presidency of the American Comparative Literature Association from 1993 to 1995, and is currently Sadie Dernham Patek Professor Emerita of Humanities at Stanford University. no 56:57 perloff, modernism, poetry, stanford http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/media/katz0506_badiou.mp3 http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/media/katz0506_badiou.mp3 23 Feb 2006 19:00:00 PDT Education Alain Badiou French philosopher Alain Badiou is a poet, playwright, critic, screenwriter, aesthetician, and political activist; he is also among the most innovating philosophers of our time. Born in Rabat, Morocco in 1937, he has taught at the University of Paris VIII (Vincennes-Saint Denis) and the École Normale Supérieure. Known for his re-thinking of core ideas in European philosophy such as event, aesthetics, love and truth, Badiou was trained as a mathematician before engaging philosophy as such. Badiou’s partition of scholarship into four fields—politics, science, art, and love—and his inventive writing on thinkers ranging from Plato, St. Paul, and Samuel Beckett to Mao Zedong, Jacques Lacan, and Heidegger offers a demonstration of philosophy's powers and its importance. no 41:51 badiou, politics, democracy, philosophy http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/media/katz0203_damasio.mp3 http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/media/katz0203_damasio.mp3 16 Jul 2003 19:30:00 PDT Education Antonio Damasio Neurologist delves into activity in the anterior portion of the cerebral hemisphere "Neither anguish nor the elation that love or art can bring about are devalued by understanding some of the myriad biological processes that make them what they are. . . Our sense of wonder should increase before the intricate mechanisms that make such magic possible." no 0:55:24 damasio,neurology,brain,emotion,feeling http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/media/katz0607_gregory.mp3 http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/media/katz0607_gregory.mp3 25 Oct 2006 19:00:00 PDT Education Derek Gregory Preeminent scholar of human and cultural geography Since 9/11 much of Gregory's work has focused on the long history of British and American involvement in the Middle East. In particular he traces how centuries of imperial and colonial practice continue to shape global imbalances of power and perception in the region. no 54:41 derek,gregory,law,violence,war,prison,guantanamo,abu ghraib http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/media/katz0607_johnson.mp3 http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/media/katz0607_johnson.mp3 1 Feb 2007 19:00:00 PDT Education Charles Johnson The model of an interdisciplinary life. From his creative beginnings as a political cartoonist and journalist to his success as a novelist, essayist, short story writer, screen-and-teleplay writer, and university professor, Charles Johnson is a model of an interdisciplinary life. Charles Johnson is the S. Wilson and Grace M. Pollock Professor of English at the University of Washington. A 1998 MacArthur Fellow, Dr. Johnson received the 1990 National Book Award for his novel Middle Passage (1990) and was a 2002 recipient of the Academy Award for Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has published collections of short fiction, screenplays, critical essays on literature and Buddhism, and has written numerous articles on writing, education, and other contemporary issues. Recent publications include Dr. King’s Refrigerator and Other Bedtime Stories (2005), Turning the Wheel: Essays on Buddhism and Writing (2003), and Africans in America: America’s Journey through Slavery (1998), the companion book for the PBS series co-authored with Patricia Smith. no 43:59 charles johnson,culture,faith,imagination http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/media/katz0607_parker.mp3 http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/media/katz0607_parker.mp3 19 Apr 2007 19:00:00 PDT Education Geoffrey Parker Renowned scholar of early modern European social, political, and military history. Climate and Catastrophe will bring new global and environmental perspectives to bear on the history of early modern Europe. Parker analyses the historical records and traces the ways in which dramatic climate changes of the 1640s precipitated a cascading series of violent social, economic, and political crises around the globe—from China to Europe to the New World colonies. Acutely relevant to current concerns about the human, economic, and political consequences of global warming, Parker’s research brings historical perspective to bear on current discussions and debates about environmental policies, international politics, and globalization. In his Katz Lecture, Parker will recount this history and probe its meaning for the present. no 56:26 geoffrey parker,climate,catastrophe,history,warming,17th century,europe http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/media/katz0203_jeffords.mp3 http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/media/katz0203_jeffords.mp3 12 Dec 2002 19:00:00 PDT Education Susan Jeffords Theorist of gender and militarism issues. Throughout American history, narratives about fathers and sons have provided compelling frameworks for telling stories about who we are as Americans. Whether stories of rebellion, restoration, correction, or continuation, the relationships between fathers and sons have structured how we, as a culture, talk about continuity, change, and hope for the future. This lecture will explore what stories about fathers and sons look like in a post-September 11 environment and what those stories tell us about how collectively we understand ourselves as Americans. no 49:07 susan jeffords,terror,culture,terrorism,gender http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/media/katz0708_attridge.mp3 http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/media/katz0708_attridge.mp3 16 Oct 2007 19:00:00 PDT Education Derek Attridge Brilliant theorist of poetic form and literary language. Through his work, Attridge attends to reading and writing as creative acts and ethical engagements that make a difference in the world, and to the specific force of the literary to effect strange and potent communication across time and space. Attridge addresses in his work the question of what we might learn -- of receptivity, of otherness, of responsibility -- by way of reading. no 49:56 derek attridge,reading http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/media/katz0708_rafael.mp3 http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/media/katz0708_rafael.mp3 31 Jan 2008 19:00:00 PDT Education Vicente L. Rafael Historian of Southeast Asia. Rafael inquires into the historical, political, and pragmatic relationship between translation and empire. Drawing attention to the complex ethics of translation practices, he examines how iterations of translation consolidate and confound imperial projects. Through a consideration of the language initiatives and policies attending the so-called War on Terror, Rafael probes the ways in which the demand for translation induces and intensifies the war of meanings, the confusion of address, and the crisis of identities in U.S.-occupied Iraq. no 59:03 vicente rafael,translation,language policy http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/media/katz0708_brown.mp3 http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/media/katz0708_brown.mp3 22 Apr 2008 19:00:00 PDT Education Wendy Brown Renowned theorist of political science. Brown addresses the curious phenomenon that finds nation-states building physical walls at their borders. In an ostensibly connected global world, such walls raise a series of questions. What is the relationship between these walls and the erosion of national sovereignty by transnational forces? Do the walls assert sovereignty or confess its failures? What is the relationship of economy and security at the site of walls? And what transformation in democracy do the new walls herald? no 57:38 wendy brown,political theory,democracy,sovereignty,walls http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/media/katz0809_davis.mp3 http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/media/katz0809_davis.mp3 6 Nov 2008 19:00:00 PDT Education Mike Davis A native Southern Californian with a varied background in activism, journalism, and urban studies. Mike Davis is the award-winning author of eighteen books. During the 1990s, Davis taught at the Southern California Institute of Architecture and published controversial polemics about Los Angeles in crisis, including City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles (1990) and Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster (1999). More recently, Davis’ research has encompassed an impressive range of urgent contemporary issues: the Latinization of large American cities in Magical Urbanism: Latinos Reinvent the U.S. Big City (2001), the history of famine and empire in Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Families and the Making of the Third World (2002), the future of poor cities in Planet of Slums (2006), and urban vulnerability in Dead Cities and Other Tales (2003), The Monster at Our Door: The Global Threat of Avian Flu (2006), and Buda’s Wagon: A Brief History of the Car Bomb (2007). He is currently working on a book about climate change in the urban Southwest. Mike Davis is Distinguished Professor in the Department of Creative Writing at the University of California, Riverside. no 46:25 mike davis,climate change,urbanism,architecture, http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/media/katz0809_knechtes.mp3 http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/media/katz0809_knechtes.mp3 28 Apr 2009 19:00:00 PDT Education David R. Knechtges Professor of Asian Languages and Literature at the University of Washington and author of more than one hundred articles and nine books on Chinese literature, history, culture, and civilization. A renowned scholar of medieval China reframes European lyric traditions and visual conventions through the rhapsodic poetry of Xie Lingyun – arguably the most avid mountain lover of the Chinese medieval period – engaging questions of sensual experience, philosophical knowledge, and spiritual truth. David R. Knechtges, '64, '68, is Professor of Asian Languages and Literature at the University of Washington and author of more than one hundred articles and nine books on Chinese literature, history, culture, and civilization. He is perhaps best known for his work as editor and translator of three volumes of Wen-xuan or Selections of Refined Literature, the most influential anthology of classical Chinese poetry, and his books include Court Culture and Literature in Early China (2002), The Han shu Biography of Yang Xiong (1982), The Han Rhapsody: A Study of the Fu of Yang Hsiung (53 BC - AD18) (1976), and Two Studies of the Han Fu (1968). He has co-edited Rhetoric and the Discourses of Power in Court Culture, East and West (with Eugene Vance, 2005) and Studies in Early Medieval Chinese Literature and Cultural History (with Paul Kroll, 2003) and also has co-translated Studies of the Han Fu (with Gong Kechang, 1997). Knechtges has been honored with a Guggenheim fellowship and is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. no 1:02:11 david knechtes,china,landscape no