Katz lecturer Gersh is leading scholar of medieval philosophy

Medieval Platonism - Between Metaphysics and Deconstruction, is the topic of Katz Lecturer Stephen Gersh, professor of medieval studies at the University of Notre Dame. Gersh will speak at 8 p.m., Tuesday, Feb. 20 in 220 Kane. A reception will follow in the Walker-Ames Room.

According to Gersh, the lecture will pursue two overlapping interpretations. The first will propose that a cluster of textual themes which one might label “Platonism” underlies all medieval thought, and that of particular importance within this context are the notions of ambiguity and non-ambiguity.

The second will suggest that the “Platonic” cluster of themes has reappeared strikingly in modern thought, as illustrated by the important Derridean quasi-concepts of “place” and “denial.” Throughout the lecture, Gersh says, he will tackle the question, misunderstood by pro-deconstructionists and anti-deconstructionists alike, of “the ontology of presence.”

Gersh received his doctorate from Cambridge University in 1973 with double first-class honors in Classics and Philosophy and is one of the world’s foremost scholars of medieval philosophy. He is the author of many books on Neoplatonism, most recently, Concord in Discourse: Harmonics and Semiotics in Late Classical and Early Medieval Platonism (1996), and co-editor of Platonism in Late Antiquity (1992).

This quarter, Gersh is the Solomon Katz Distinguished Professor in the Humanities and is in residence at the UW. He is leading a graduate seminar, “The Platonic Tradition in Western Medieval Thought.”

The Solomon Katz Distinguished Lecturers in the Humanities Series was established in 1975 and presents three speakers during the academic year, two from other institutions and one from the UW faculty. The series is named in honor of the late Professor Solomon Katz, a distinguished member of the UW faculty and former Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs.

For further information about the Solomon Katz Distinguished Lecturers in the Humanities Series, contact Liz Browning at the Simpson Center for the Humanities at 543-3920.