It has been said that there are not different “types” or categories of music, only good music and bad music. How can we know the difference between good and bad music however? Well, on some accounts, there are indeed different types (‘low’ vs ‘high’ art), some of which are by definition bad, others good. Yet, on other accounts, music is music – there are no essential differences in kind, and it is simply each listener’s favorable or unfavorable reaction to any given song or piece of music that decides its quality. In very broad strokes, these two contrasting orientations represent attitudes common in modernist and postmodernist theories, respectively. In the former, Western classical music was privileged (unjustly, in some respects) above all other kinds. However, the latter orientation, which is currently in fashion, seems to reduce all musical meaning and appraisal to little more than our own mental projections. In this presentation, a third, alternative way to identify musical “types” is proposed, one that seeks to illuminate meaningful musical distinctions in the natures and functions of three musical kinds (folk, mass, and art music), with some surprising results. A brief piano performance will precede the talk.
Monday, December 11, 2017 at 6pm. This event is part of the Philosophy Series at The Cornelia Street Café, located at 29 Cornelia Street, New York, NY 10014 (near Sixth Avenue and West 4th St.). Admission is $10, which includes the price of one drink. Reservations are recommended (212. 989.9319)
Jason Cutmore is a concert pianist, teacher, and the founder and director of the Canadian music festival, Alberta Pianofest. He has performed solo piano and collaborative recitals across much of North America, Europe, and India, and has published articles in peer review journals and trade magazines. Mr Cutmore lives in New York City, and is currently completing a Master’s degree in Philosophy at the CUNY Graduate Center.
Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo is a brilliant, suspenseful mystery exploring the often dangerous intimacy between love, compulsion, and death. It is also a profound meditation on the power of art. While it invites us to go on seeing art as a mimesis – a “representation,” or “imitation” of life – it also cryptically asks whether art objects might do more than merely represent life, even whether they might exercise power over death. James Stewart’s Scotty has been compared to Orpheus in quest of Eurydice; I suggest that he’s worth comparing to Admetus, who wished he could be Orpheus, and who imagines clinging to a statue to recapture his lost wife. The spell cast by Hitchcock in Vertigo shows us just how bewitching art can be when it has us under its sway.
Monday, March 19, 2018 at 6pm. This event is part of the Philosophy Series at The Cornelia Street Café, located at 29 Cornelia Street, New York, NY 10014 (near Sixth Avenue and West 4th St.). Admission is $10, which includes the price of one drink. Reservations are recommended (212. 989.9319)
Nickolas Pappas is Professor of Philosophy at City College and the Graduate Center, CUNY, where he has taught since 1993. He is the author of several books and around 40 articles, mostly on topics in ancient philosophy. His books include the Routledge Philosophical Guidebook to Plato’s Republic, now in its third edition; and most recently The Philosopher’s New Clothes (Routledge, 2016).
You probably know the Lucas Brothers from their Netflix comedy special On Drugs or their appearances in TV shows and movies like Lady Dynamite and 22 Jump Street. You might not know that they are serious students of philosophy. Join us on Wednesday, November 28th at 7:30 PM in the Strand Bookstore’s 2nd Floor Art Department as Kenny and Keith Lucas join Michael Brownstein (Associate Professor of Philosophy at John Jay College and author of The Implicit Mind) to discuss how philosophy shapes their comedy, how comedy works, the weirdly popular idea that comedians are today’s philosophers, and more.
The price of admission is a $5 gift certificate to the Strand. (You were probably going to spend $5 at the Strand some time soon, anyway.) Please purchase tickets here and share the Facebook event. I will take all the help I can get in spreading the word.
Stay tuned for more info about Kwame Anthony Appiah’s December 4th talk about identity at Philosophy in the Library!
Pregnancy is something that affects all of us: Many of us are, have been, or will be, pregnant; and each and every one of us is the result of a pregnancy. But there remain deep and important questions about pregnancy that are yet to be answered.
What is it to be pregnant? How can we understand the complex relationship between the fetus and the mother? What are the myths and assumptions that surround the phenomenon of pregnancy? Should we challenge the medical and paternalistic interpretations of pregnancy? Are our current dominant understandings of and cultural scripts about pregnancy harmful?
Two philosophers discuss these issues regarding pregnancy through a phenomenological and metaphysical lens.
Suki Finn is a Doctor of Philosophy, working as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Philosophy Department at the University of Southampton in the UK, on the ERC funded project ‘Better Understanding the Metaphysics of Pregnancy‘. Suki is currently embarking on a Visiting Research Scholarship at New York University to continue her work on the metaphysics of pregnancy, and she also researches in the areas of metametaphysics and the philosophy of logic. Suki’s research has been published in various academic journals, books, and the popular online magazine Aeon. Her publications can be viewed on Academia or PhilPeople. Suki is also on the Executive Committee for the Society for Women in Philosophy UK, and on the Council for the Royal Institute of Philosophy.
Jennifer Scuro, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the College of New Rochelle in New York and has been recently elected to the governing board of the Cultural Studies Association. She is the author of Addressing Ableism: Philosophical Questions via Disability Studies(Lexington Books, Oct 2017) and The Pregnancy ≠ Childbearing Project: A Phenomenology of Miscarriage, (Rowman & Littlefield International, Feb 2017) a (autobio)graphic novel and feminist phenomenological analysis of pregnant embodiment, miscarriage and the labor of grief. The original tracework art from her graphic novel on miscarriage has been exhibited in several cities with the award-winning arts organization, The ART of Infertility.
This event is co-sponsored by the Gotham Philosophical Society and the CUNY Academy for the Humanities and Sciences. Admission is free and open to the public.
Wednesday, December 19, 2018 at 6:30pm, in the Martin E. Segal Theater
CUNY Graduate Center, 365 5th Avenue (at 34th Street) New York, New York 10016 (212) 817-7944 cunyacademy@gc.cuny.edu
Join us for a conversation with Robin Wall Kimmerer as she helps us rethink, reimagine and, renarrate our relationship to the sacred and the natural world. Can the objective, data-driven approach of science be enriched by non-anthropocentric spiritual worldviews? As a botanist and a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, Dr. Kimmerer draws on both indigenous wisdom and scientific knowledge to enrich and animate our understanding of the natural world. This expansive way of seeing and relating to creation privileges regeneration and reciprocity, and offers novel solutions for ecological restoration and climate change resilience.
Dr. Kimmerer will be joined in conversation with Union faculty member John Thatamanil, and Geraldine Ann Patrick Encina, Scholar in Residence for Union’s Center for Earth Ethics.
RSVP Here
About Robin Wall Kimmerer:
Dr. Kimmerer is a mother, plant ecologist, writer and SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, New York. She serves as the founding Director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment whose mission is to create programs which draw on the wisdom of both indigenous and scientific knowledge for our shared goals of sustainability. Her research interests include the role of traditional ecological knowledge in ecological restoration and the ecology of mosses. In collaboration with tribal partners, she and her students have an active research program in the ecology and restoration of plants of cultural significance to Native people. Read More.
About The Insight Project:
The Insight Project is a new multi-year program series that explores modern conceptions of theology and spirituality through a diverse array of thought-provoking lectures, screenings, performances, and on-stage conversations. Click HERE to learn more.
Professor Barbara Gail Montero is the director of (and a performer in) the upcoming multimedia, interdisciplinary event Curved Spacetimes: Where Friedrich Nietzsche Meets Virginia Woolf. Prof. Nickolas Pappas will also perform (reading spoken word as Friedrich Nietzsche), and Prof. Jonathan Gilmore is a member of the team that brought the project to fruition.
According to the American Society for Aesthetics (who partially funded this project with a $7,000 grant), Curved Spacetimes is “multisensory event focused on the Physics, Aesthetics, and Metaphysics of Time. . . .[T]he evening will commence with a Nietzsche-Woolf-curved-spacetime-inspired reception that will allow you to test your knowledge of our central figures. Following the reception, you will experience Nietzsche, Woolf and curved spacetime coming to life on the stage (through dance, live music and the spoken word), and then listen to a panel discussion that will take you more deeply into the ideas guiding the performance.”
When: Sunday, March 17, 2019: 6-9 pm
Where: The Tank, 312 W. 36th St. 1st floor, New York City.
Schedule of Events
- 6 PM: Pre-performance catered reception—pass the Woolf/Nietzsche pre-test for a free drink!
- 7 PM: Performance
- 8 PM: Panel discussion on the physics, aesthetics, and metaphysics of time
Choreography: Logos Dance Collective (Barbara Gail Montero, Theresa Duhon, Patra Jongjitirat, and Gregory Kollarus)
Performers: Elise Crull, Theresa Duhon, Maxine Flasher-Duzgunes, Patra Jongjitirat, Gregory Kollarus, Barbara Gail Montero, and Nickolas Pappas
Music: Selections from Bach’s Cello Suites, performed live by cellist Ivan Luza
Text: excerpts from Thus Spoke Zarathustra, The Gay Science, Mrs. Dalloway, and The Diary of Virginia Woolf
Panelists for the after-performance discussion:
- Jeff Friedman, Associate Professor of Dance Rutgers University
- Kathleen Higgins, Professor of Philosophy, University of Texas at Austin
- Timothy Maudlin, Professor of Philosophy, New York University
- Heather Whitney, JD, Harvard Law School & PhD Candidate, New York University
Moderator: Rebecca Ariel Porte, Writer and member of the Core Faculty at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research.
Free tickets for students in philosophy, literature, dance and physics are supported by the ASA grant and are available from bmontero@gc.cuny.edu
For all others, tickets are on sale now on-line at The Tank
Project Team:
- Barbara Gail Montero (Project Director), Professor of Philosophy, CUNY and Founder and member of the Logos Dance Collective
- Jonathan Gilmore, Professor of Philosophy, CUNY
- Maxine Flasher-Duzgunes, BFA student in Dance at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and member of the Logos Dance Collective
- Cliff Mak, Assistant Professor of English, Queens College, CUNY
Søren Kierkegaard’s most famous work, Fear and Trembling, has the distinction of drawing near-universal derision from scholars of political theory and ethics. Dr. Dinan suggests that Kierkegaard’s readers haven’t accounted for his return to Socratic political philosophy as a direct riposte to the politics of G.W.F. Hegel and his successors. He considers the implications of Kierkegaard’s use of the ‘questionable stratagem’ of Socratic irony in relation to politics, ethics, Christian faith, and philosophy. Kierkegaard is concerned not with destroying political philosophy, but with restoring its attentiveness to paradox.
Dr. Matt Dinan, Assistant Professor, St. Thomas University
In this session, Mandik will expand on his idea that persons are abstract things. To do this, he will discuss recent philosophical issues about personal identity, mind-uploading, and whether you could upload your mind to a piece of technology and survive.
5/6 – Philosophy in the Library: Rivka Weinberg, “Ultimate Meaning: We Don’t Have it, We Can’t Get it, and We Should be Very, Very Sad” @ the Dweck Center // 7:30 P.M.-9:00 P.M.
2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the birth of hip-hop, and the beginning of a sonic, cultural and socio-political revolution that changed the U.S. and the world. To commemorate the anniversary, Brooklyn Public Library will present NIGHT IN THE LIBRARY: THE PHILOSOPHY OF HIP-HOP on Saturday, June 17th, from 7 pm – 2 am at Central Library.
Join us for this FREE event that will take over the entire Central Library building to celebrate hip-hop culture past, present and future, with keynote addresses, live DJs, film screenings, discussions, debates and contemplative engagements. BPL invites you to celebrate hip-hop and spend a NIGHT IN THE LIBRARY.
Co-curated by LeBrandon Smith and Kelly Harrison. The Dilemma Series is curated by April R. Silver, founder of AKILA WORKSONGS.