Office of the Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs

Message Archive

Saturday, March 31, 2018

 

This email is being sent to all members of the Baruch College faculty.

For an archive of announcements sent from the Associate Provost beginning June 2011, click here.

 

From:  Prof. Jessica Lang, Department of English; Director, Wasserman Jewish Studies Center

On April 19, the Wasserman Jewish Studies Center will host its seventh annual conference, entitled “Spinoza’s Universe.” Few thinkers have elicited as much controversy, nor held as much influence, as Baruch Spinoza. Banished from his Jewish community in Amsterdam for holding heretical views, and yet celebrated as a leading 17^th-century writer and philosopher, Spinoza’s influence still resonates today. Please see below for panel speakers, titles, and times. Author Russell Shorto will deliver the keynote address. For more details and to make reservations, please click Here.

 

 

Spinoza’s Universe

Thursday, April 19^th, 2018

Baruch College

Baruch Performing Arts Center

Engelman Recital Hall

55 Lexington Ave.

(Enter on West 25^th St. between Lexington and Third Avenues)

 

 

Panel 1: “Why Spinoza Now?”

10am-11:45am

The relevance of Spinoza in our current political and social environment

Yitzhak Melamed (Johns Hopkins University)

“Spinoza on Right and Power”

Heidi Ravven (Hamilton College)

“Did Spinoza Get Ethics Right? Some Evidence from the New Brain Sciences”

Ericka Tucker (Marquette University)

“Why Democracy?”

 

 

Panel 2: “Spinoza and the (Post) Enlightenment”

12PM-1:45PM

Spinoza’s impact on the Enlightenment and modern ideas of democracy, equality, diversity, and more

Omri Boehm (The New School)

“Spinoza and Kant on Prophecy and Enlightenment”

Julie Klein (Villanova University)

“Spinoza and the Idea of Critique”

Derk Pereboom (Cornell University)

“Spinoza, Free Will, and the Legacy of the Radical Enlightenment”

Justin Steinberg (Brooklyn College|CUNY Graduate Center)

“Envy, Equality, and Exclusion in Spinoza's Analysis of Democracy”

 

 

Panel 3: “Spinoza and the Jewish Community” 

5:30PM-7:00PM

Explores Spinoza’s relationship to the Jewish community in all its complicated history

Nancy Levene (Yale University)

“Jewish Questions to Spinoza”

Michael Rosenthal (University of Washington)

“Spinoza, Ben-Gurion, and Church-State Relations in Israel”

Daniel Schwartz (George Washington University)

“Should the Excommunication of Spinoza Be Lifted? Reflections on an Age-Old Dilemma”

 

 

Keynote Speaker: Russell Shorto

7:30PM “Spinoza, the Dutch Landscape and the Human Mind.”

 

 

 

~ Sponsored by the Wasserman Jewish Studies Center, the Baruch Performing Arts Center, 

and the Department​ of Philosophy ~