In pursuit of SOPHIA’s mission, of building communities of philosophical conversation locally, nationally, internationally, and online, we are continuing our process of creating introduction videos. Two new members joined SOPHIA in the last month or so, and each was kind enough to be willing to create an introduction video. These two fellows are Jim Lyttle and Casey Dorman and the following is a short introduction video of each one. Get to know our new members and welcome them to the group!
Welcome, both of you, to SOPHIA! A number of members, officers, and trustees have yet to make introduction videos. The holiday season can be a great time to get that done. Reach out to Executive Director Eric Weber to plan when we’ll make yours!
In the spirit of building communities of philosophical conversation, locally and online, we are continuing to record little introduction videos for our members and leaders. Here’s one for Dr. Bertha Alvarez Manninen. For each of these videos, we are asking 1) Who are you? 2) Why are you interested in philosophy and in SOPHIA? and 3) What’s something unique or unusual about you? We want these videos to put a face and a voice to a name. Here’s Dr. Manninen’s profile page.
If you’d like to make a video, reach out to SOPHIA’s Executive Director and we’ll record one. Getting together for that purpose also gives us an opportunity to chat. Enjoy this little intro video featuring Dr. Manninen:
Here below is the video of our first online symposium, which we organized on the topic of trigger warnings. Note that the audio in the first 8-10 minutes includes some background noise from participants getting set up. We eventually got those sounds under control and know now how to avoid such problems in future discussion. We hope that you enjoy this video and that you’ll join us in the future. Also, send us ideas about topics that you want to talk about. We are looking to put on regular discussions like this one on a variety of topics. We hope you enjoy:
SOPHIA is holding our first online symposium, a conversational meeting open to all, on the subject of “trigger warnings,” the act of alerting students in advance about potentially offensive messages or images to be covered in an educational setting. Controversy arose in part in reaction to a letter from the Dean of Students at the University of Chicago, which you can find here, and which we ask that each participant in our conversation read prior to joining us (1 page).
Title:Trigger Warnings: Offense, Respect, and Freedom [Online Video Symposium]
Day and time: Wednesday, 10/19/16 from 2:00-3:30 p.m. Eastern.
Place: Online. In advance, click this link to download a small tool that will enable participation. If you have used Zoom online video conferencing before, you may not need to download the little app.
SPECIAL NOTE: This conversational meeting will be recorded and then posted on YouTube. You can participate either with video and audio or you can just watch the discussion and comment in the platform’s chat section. Those unable to participate at the time of the discussion can watch the video later on YouTube.
Facilitators:
Dr. Bertha Manninen, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Arizona State University
and
Dr. Shane Courtland, Managing Director of the Center for Free Enterprise at West Virginia University.
In addition,
Dr. Eric Thomas Weber, Executive Director of SOPHIA, will serve as the moderator of our online forum.
And featuring a special Guest:
We are also very fortunate to have a special guest joining us from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE):
Ari Cohn, J.D., Senior Program Officer for Legal and Public Advocacy for F.I.R.E.
Finally, you can also call us and leave us a voicemail with a comment or question, by calling: 859.257.1849. Please introduce yourself, tell us where you’re from, and please limit your message length to 1 minute or less.
Date:
October 19, 2016
Time:
02:00-03:30 p.m. Eastern
Event:
Trigger Warnings: Offense, Respect, and Freedom [Online Video Symposium]
Topic:
Education, Academic Freedom, Respect for Victims of Trauma
Keep up to date on SOPHIA activities and get involved by joining SOPHIA!
As we in SOPHIA prepare for an online philosophical discussion about “trigger warnings,” we thought some of you may enjoy hearing a talk by Dr. Shane Courtland, SOPHIA’s Communications Officer. He’ll be one of our facilitators for the conversation, along with Dr. Bertha Manninen. We are also working on possibilities for invited participants, and will share more information when it it available. This talk is Dr. Courtland’s “Last Lecture,” titled “The Importance of Tolerating Offense,” which he gave at the University of Minnesota Duluth before he moved from there to West Virginia University. If you get a chance, listen to his talk via YouTube (FYI, it is a sound recording only).
UPDATE: You can also follow along with Dr. Courtland’s slides for the talk here:
