March 2024

Why Was Spinoza Excommunicated? by Steven Nadler

Philosophy Seminar Series In July 1656, Bento (Baruch) de Spinoza was given the harshest herem (ban or ostracism) ever issued by the Amsterdam Portuguese-Jewish community. The text of the ban rains curses down upon the young man, for his “abominable heresies and monstrous deeds”. Unlike other bans issued by the community in the period, it was never rescinded. But why was Spinoza excommunicated with such prejudice? He was only twenty-three years old, not yet the famous (and “scandalous”) philosopher he would later become.

Tuesday, 2024, April 2 - 4:30pm

"Can Kant’s Cognitive Architecture be Embodied within the Whole Person?" by Kenneth Westphal (Academia Europaea)

VIA ZOOM Register for Zoom information or join us in EWFM to watch together Philosophy Seminar Series 2023-24 Abstract: Kant’s key question driving his Critique of Pure Reason is, as he wrote to Herz, ‘On what ground rests the relation of that in us which is called representation to the object?’ Kant identified key problems about sensation, perception and cognition, which ultimately require both philosophical and physiological solutions. To resolve these problems philosophically, Kant developed a very sophisticated epistemology and also a cogent cognitive architecture.
Tuesday, 2024, March 26 - 12:30pm

CGIS: Mostafa Minawi "Arab-Ottoman Imperialists of Istanbul at the Turn of the 20th Century"

This lecture is based on Mostafa Minawi, Associate Professor of History and Director of Critical Ottoman and Post-Ottoman Studies at Cornell University, latest book, “Losing Istanbul: Arab-Ottoman Imperialists and the End of Empire.” It is a micro-history of major events that a small Arab-Ottoman community of Istanbul lived through. Following an extended family of Ottoman imperial loyalists, he explores how these men and women experienced and adapted to new realities of increasingly racialized and Turco-centric identitarian categories in Istanbul, in the final years of the Ottoman Empire.
Wednesday, 2024, March 27 - 12:30pm to 1:30pm

Reflections on the 81st Anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising with Prof. Jan Gross

Presented by the Philip and Muriel Berman Center for Jewish Studies, Dr. Gross will comment on the circumstances of the Ghetto Uprising and the reactions it evoked at the time. Dr. Gross is the author of a number of books on the Second World War and Polish-Jewish relations, including “Neighbors: Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland”; and “Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland After Auschwitz.”
Wednesday, 2024, March 27 - 12:30pm

The Metaverse and its Premoderns: Islam in an Expanding Reality

Presented by the Center for Global Islamic Studies, Christiane Gruber, Professor of Islamic Art and Former Chair of the History of Art Department at the University of Michigan, will discuss the Metaverse and its Premoderns: Islam in an Expanding Reality. Dr. Gruber is Professor of Islamic Art and Former Chair of the History of Art Department at the University of Michigan as well as Founding Director of Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online.
Thursday, 2024, March 21 - 12:30am

Dr. Eleanor Nwadinobi Public Talk: The Many Shades of Violence Against Women and Girls

Dr. Eleanor Ann Nwadinobi (MBBS, EMA, FAAC) presents a public talk on The Many Shades of Violence Against Women and Girls: A human rights violation, a public health emergency, and an existential threat requiring urgent global action. Dr. Eleanor Nwadinobi is a medical doctor and international health, women, peace and security, gender and human rights expert. She holds a European Union masters in Human rights and Democratization (EMA) from Venice, Italy. The talk will take place on Tuesday, March 19th at 7pm in Sinclair Lab Auditorium, and is free and open to the public.
Tuesday, 2024, March 19 - 3:00pm to 5:00pm

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