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2009/2010 Lectures and Conferences Forty-first Annual Program

"Narrative Wisdom—Narrative Meaning"

What is the role of story or narrative in human understanding? What specific human cognitive or imaginative capacities are required for the construction and discernment of narrative patterns in our lives? The Institute's annual lecture and conference series for 2009-2010 will offer an interdisciplinary exploration of the importance of philosophical and religious narrative in human self-understanding, culminating with a conference in Spring 2010 on philosophical and intellectual life-story writing. The Institute will also play host in Feburary 2010 to the Boston Area Symposium on the Philosophy of Religion.

"The Whole Story: Personal Identity, Narrative, and Biology"

Marya Schechtman, Department of Philosophy, University of Illinois at Chicago
Wednesday, September 9, 5 p.m.
Boston University The Photonics Center Colloquium Room
8 Saint Mary's Street Ninth Floor
Moderator: Richard Eldridge, Department of Philosophy, Swarthmore College

"Philosophical Insight, Emotion and Popular Fiction: The Case of Sunset Boulevard"

Noël Carroll, Department of Philosophy, The Graduate Center—City University of New York
Wednesday, September 23
Film Showing 5 p.m.
Lecture 7 p.m.
Boston University The Photonics Center Colloquium Room
8 Saint Mary's Street Ninth Floor
Moderator: Leland Monk, Department of English, Boston University

"Dostoevsky and the Literature of Process: What Open Time Looks Like"

Gary Saul Morson, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Northwestern University
Wednesday, October 14, 5 p.m.
Boston University College of Arts & Sciences Building
745 Commonwealth Avenue Room 313
Moderator: Katherine O'Connor, Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, Boston University

Panel: Cross-Cultural Religious Perspectives on Narrative

Michael Puett, Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University
Anne Monius, Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies, Harvard University
M. David Eckel, Department of Religion, Boston University
Tuesday, October 27, 5 p.m.
Boston University The Photonics Center Colloquium Room
8 Saint Mary’s Street
Moderator: John Berthrong, Associate Dean, School of Theology, Boston University

"Narrative Form and the 'Meaning' of a Life"

Joshua Landy, Department of French and Italian, Stanford University
Wednesday, November 4, 5 p.m.
Boston University School of Law Barristers Hall
765 Commonwealth Avenue First Floor
Respondent: Professor Will Waters, Chair, Department of Modern Languages and Comparative Literature, Boston Universtiy

"Narrative Thinking, Emotion, and Autobiographical Memory"

Peter Goldie, Department of Philosophy, University of Manchester (UK)
Wednesday, November 18, 5 p.m.
Boston University School of Law Barristers Hall
765 Commonwealth Avenue First Floor
Moderator: Charles Griswold, Department of Philosophy, Boston University

"Narrative, Anti-Narrative, and Self-Understanding"

Richard Moran, Department of Philosophy, Harvard University
Wednesday, December 9, 6 p.m.
Boston University School of Law Barristers Hall
765 Commonwealth Avenue First Floor
Respondent: David Roochnik, Professor of Philosophy, Boston University

"We Live Beyond Any Tale That We Happen to Enact" [V. S. Pritchett]

Galen Strawson, Department of Philosophy, University of Reading (UK)
Wednesday, February 17, 5 p.m.
Boston University School of Law Barristers Hall
765 Commonwealth Avenue First Floor
Commentator: Christopher Ricks, Editorial Institute, Boston University
Moderator: Amélie Rorty, Department of Philosophy, Boston University

• IPR Focal Conference on Philosophical and Intellectual Biography (March 2010)
• 2008-09 Program
  • IPR Focal Conference on Reconciliation in the Wake of Conflict (March 2009)