Join the Humanities Council at Princeton University for a kick-off event featuring a wide-ranging and interdisciplinary conversation about central issues in our research, teaching, and intellectual life.
Details
This year’s speakers, distinguished Princeton scholars whose work represents different approaches and historical periods, will participate in a panel discussion on the theme “Knowledge and Action.” In A Letter to My Nephew (1962), James Baldwin wrote: “[P]eople find it very difficult to act on what they know. To act is to be committed and to be committed is to be in danger.” Taking these words as a point of departure, the Colloquium ponders the role that knowing and acting play in our democracy in this election. The conversation will be moderated by Council Chair Esther Schor (English).
Speakers:
- Yelena Baraz (Classics; Society of Fellows), “Saving Persephone: Secondary Trauma and Bystander Intervention in Ovid’s Metamorphoses”
- Eliza Griswold (Journalism), “A Legacy in Action: Baldwin’s Influence in Contemporary Politics”
- Jan-Werner Müller (Politics), “The Will Not to Know: Varieties of Ignorance and the Rise of Autocracy in Our Time”
- Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor (African American Studies), “Making America What America Must Become: Confronting Amnesia and Innocence after Baldwin”
Open to the University community.
PLEASE NOTE: Photographs and recordings taken at Department of African American Studies events by anyone authorized by Princeton University may be used in publications, both electronic and print, at the discretion of the University and the Department of African American Studies.
Any individual, including visitors to campus, who requires accommodation should contact Dionne Worthy ([email protected]) at least one week in advance of the event.