Philosophy Club to host regional universities on campus next week
By: David Johns
Issue date: 3/30/06 Section: News
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The Philosophy Club will host Webster University's first multi-university undergraduate philosophy conference April 7.
Speakers from Washington University, the University of Illinois at Chicago, DePaul University, Ball State and Southern Illinois University at Carbondale will speak on a wide variety of subjects, ranging from film, art, music and social topics, all with tie-ins to philosophy.
The conference will start at 9 a.m. in the Emerson Library Conference Room and continue throughout the day. Students are encouraged by the club to attend at their leisure or in between classes, and come to one or more, if not all of the lectures.
The conference represents a broad effort by the Philosophy Club to garner the interests of a student body that sticks to the course requirements of their individual majors.
There are some in the Philosophy Club who feel many students have the wrong idea about philosophy.
"It's not all about reading a lot of dead white men," said senior Danae McLeod, a philosophy major.
"Philosophy classes come with this connotation of being difficult or that the reading is hard to understand. Philosophy relates to our daily experience, to the problems we see going on in our lives," said McLeod, Philosophy Club president.
Senior Hannah Gruber echoed McLeod's call to the student body majority.
"We're trying to encourage a crossing of the borders - a blurring of the disciplinary lines," said Gruber, a philosophy major.
To accompany the speakers' presentations, a special edition of The Sophia, Webster's philosophy publication, will be available at the conference and will feature a printed version of the lectures delivered that day.
"We wanted to give interested students better access to the material," McLeod said. "They can use The Sophia to follow along or to refer to when asking questions."
Each presentation will be approximately 35 minutes, which includes a Q-and-A period for each lecturer, and the conference will end with a half-hour period for general questions and discussion.
Speakers from Washington University, the University of Illinois at Chicago, DePaul University, Ball State and Southern Illinois University at Carbondale will speak on a wide variety of subjects, ranging from film, art, music and social topics, all with tie-ins to philosophy.
The conference will start at 9 a.m. in the Emerson Library Conference Room and continue throughout the day. Students are encouraged by the club to attend at their leisure or in between classes, and come to one or more, if not all of the lectures.
The conference represents a broad effort by the Philosophy Club to garner the interests of a student body that sticks to the course requirements of their individual majors.
There are some in the Philosophy Club who feel many students have the wrong idea about philosophy.
"It's not all about reading a lot of dead white men," said senior Danae McLeod, a philosophy major.
"Philosophy classes come with this connotation of being difficult or that the reading is hard to understand. Philosophy relates to our daily experience, to the problems we see going on in our lives," said McLeod, Philosophy Club president.
Senior Hannah Gruber echoed McLeod's call to the student body majority.
"We're trying to encourage a crossing of the borders - a blurring of the disciplinary lines," said Gruber, a philosophy major.
To accompany the speakers' presentations, a special edition of The Sophia, Webster's philosophy publication, will be available at the conference and will feature a printed version of the lectures delivered that day.
"We wanted to give interested students better access to the material," McLeod said. "They can use The Sophia to follow along or to refer to when asking questions."
Each presentation will be approximately 35 minutes, which includes a Q-and-A period for each lecturer, and the conference will end with a half-hour period for general questions and discussion.
