2005 - 2006 MFS

Edward Said, Orientalism – November 3-5, 2005

Since its publication in 1978, Orientalism has been translated into 36 languages. It is often credited with fundamentally reshaping several disciplines, and almost single-handedly inventing the field of postcolonial studies. With such far-reaching influence, Orientalism has been lauded and attacked with equal vehemence: lauded for revising our global map, for introducing new ways of talking about “other” cultures, and for giving both Western and Arab intellectuals a way to understand their interdependent histories; attacked for encouraging naïve cultural relativism or for condemning the very tradition out of which it comes. This seminar will revisit Said’s seminal text in order to consider its methodology and central aims, the context in which it was written, and the legacy it has left behind, both inside and outside of the academy.

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The Future of Citizenship
January 19-21, 2006

In its post-Enlightenment incarnations, citizenship is usually understood in liberal contractarian terms to mark a set of relations between an individual and a nation. This seminar will discuss the history and theory of citizenship in order to consider the place of this concept in a world characterized by unprecedented economic globalization, international migration, and marketization. How might we imagine our participation in political communities when the boundaries of these communities are increasingly unstable? Does “citizenship” remain a useful way to do this? In order to address this question, this seminar will explore various kinds of supranational citizenries, international human rights, and watershed moments in the history of the concept, including eighteenth-century political revolutions and twentieth-century decolonization

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Secularism
February 22-25, 2006

Natural Science and Human Values: Co-evolution or Confrontation?
April 27-29, 2006

This seminar will consider the challenge of teaching science in the United States today, particularly in the context of recent debates about teaching evolution. Rather than treat these debates as a simple contest between science and religion, the left and the right, this seminar will use this interdisciplinary setting to explore what is at stake in this controversy. We will look at how the “intelligent design” argument seeks to redefine science by removing its commitment to methodological naturalism, and will examine the different understandings of “naturalism” that inform contemporary scientific and non-scientific culture. We will also discuss questions of educational accountability and cultural pluralism: how should educators address the divide between the scientific community and the large majority of Americans who, as polls show, do not think that evolution is a proven scientific fact?

Bibliography and Readings

• Jerry Coyne, “The Faith That Dare Not Speak Its Name: The Case Against Intelligent Design,” The New Republic  Vol. 233, Issue 8/9 (August 22-29, 2005): 21-33.

  • In this article, Coyne reviews the history of the movement for teaching creationism in the US. He also reviews Of Pandas and People, the textbook that supporters of Intelligent Design want to introduce into biology classrooms.
• Charles Darwin, “Chapter 4: Natural Selection,” On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (London, 1859).

  • This selection from Darwin’s classic work outlines how Darwin understood evolution to operate.
• Langdon Gilkey, Creationism on Trial: Evolution and God at Little Rock (Minneapolis: Winston, 1985) 108-119; 161-182, 200-208.

  • In Creationism on Trial, Gilkey recounts his experiences as a theological witness for the ACLU at the 1981 trial in Little Rock, Arkansas, which contested the constitutionality of teaching an earlier form of "creation-science" in public schools. The first selection (pp. 108-119) is a segment from Gilkey's testimony, which attempts to distinguish religious and scientific theory, and to argue that creationism is an example of the former. The second selection (pp. 161-182, 200-208) considers how science and religion manifest themselves and interact with each other in an advanced scientific society like the contemporary United States.
• Philip Johnson, “Evolution as Dogma: The Establishment of Naturalism,” In Intelligent Design Creationism and its Critics: Philosophical, Theological, and Scientific Perspectives, ed. Robert T. Pennock (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press): 2001.

  • One of the leading proponents of Intelligent Design, Berkeley law professor Philip Johnson, argues that the Darwinian theory of evolution entails a materialist worldview that leaves no room for God. He casts the evolution/creationism controversy as a struggle between dogmatism and intellectual freedom.
• Robert Pennock, “Naturalism, Evidence, and Creationism: The Case of Phillip Johnson” In Intelligent Design Creationism and its Critics: Philosophical, Theological, and Scientific Perspectives, ed. Robert T. Pennock (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press): 2001.

  • In this essay, Pennock replies to Johnson by arguing for a distinction between methodological naturalism and metaphysical or ontological naturalism. Pennock argues that science is bound by the former and not the latter: it does not preclude the existence of supernatural forces, but only excludes these from the domain of scientific inquiry.

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