May 16, 2015 · ▶ Video
Human and Nonhuman Minds: Continuities and Discontinuities
The event examined animal cognition following Darwin's 1872 work on emotions. The subsequent prodigious scientific study of animal cognition and behavior has answered this...
Theodore Dimon, Stuart Firestein, Alexandra Horowitz, Irene Pepperberg, Diana Reiss
May 2, 2015 · ▶ Video
Trauma and its Aftereffects, Part I: War and Genocide
The roundtable explores what it means to be a survivor of traumatic violence in war and genocide, whether as victim, perpetrator, or descendant. It examines implications for...
Adam J. Sacks, Ryan Tellalian, Gottfried Wagner, Eva Weil, Phil Zabriskie
April 25, 2015 · ▶ Video
The Changing Nature of Free Will
The roundtable explored how advances in genetics and neuroscience are reshaping our understanding of free will and voluntary choice. Key questions included implications for...
Akeel Bilgrami, Luis Cabral, Brigitte Kahl, Kenneth T. Kishida, Simon Kochen
April 18, 2015 · ▶ Video
The Mind of a Child
The roundtable explores how children at different developmental stages understand the world. Key questions addressed include how one-, three-, and five-year-olds conceptualize...
Patricia Bauer, Paul Harris, Regina Pally, Colin Phillips, Steven Wein, Paul Zelinsky
March 14, 2015 · ▶ Video
Curiosity
The roundtable explores how curiosity has been seen through the ages as the impulse that drives our knowledge forward alongside its risks as a temptation toward dangerous and...
Alberto Manguel, Paul Browde, Edgar Choueiri, Marie Howe, Siri Hustvedt
March 7, 2015 · ▶ Video
Apprehending Consciousness
The roundtable explores whether science is nearing an answer to the question of how and why consciousness and self-consciousness come about. It examines roles of physics,...
David Chalmers, Karl Friston, Piet Hut, Gabrielle Jackson, Ken Paller, Nicholas Schiff
February 21, 2015 · ▶ Video
Particle Fever / The Quest
The event centered on Mark Levinson's 2013 documentary "Particle Fever," which tells the remarkable story of the monumental search for the Higgs boson, the elementary force...
Sarah Demers, Mark Levinson, Alberto Manguel, Jean Strouse
February 7, 2015 · ▶ Video
The Sublime Experience
The roundtable examined how the sublime evolved from pre-18th century understanding of "beauty and greatness beyond measure" through Edmund Burke's foundational work. Discussion...
Paul Fry, James Judd, Alan Richardson, Sandra Shapshay
January 24, 2015 · ▶ Video
Music to Whose Ears II: Embodied Cognition
This follow-up to a 2013 roundtable explores the body's role in musical experience, its perception and cognition, building on previous discussions connecting music and emotion....
Nacho Arimany, Edgar Choueiri, Vijay Iyer, Marina Korsakova-Kreyn, Tristan Perich
December 13, 2014 · ▶ Video
The Search for Immortality
The roundtable explores humanity's pursuit of transcending mortality through philosophy, science, and spirituality. Drawing from Plato's Phaedo, it examines how awareness of death...
Martin Hägglund, Chris Impey, Adam Kirsch, Sheldon Solomon, Polly Young-Eisendrath
December 6, 2014 · ▶ Video
French Surrealism: A Revolution of the Mind
The event explored French Surrealism beyond its famous visual art. "French Surrealism is probably best known for its paintings -- images of floppy watches or men in bowler hats...
Mary Ann Caws, Anne-Marie Levine, Mark Polizzotti, Bill Zavatsky
November 15, 2014 · ▶ Video
Complexity and Emergence
Psychobiologist Roger Sperry's concept that "mind and consciousness are dynamic emergent properties of the living brain in action" forms the basis for this discussion. The...
Mark Alford, Zosia Krusberg, Timothy O'Connor, Raul Rabadan, Caleb Scharf
October 25, 2014 · ▶ Video
The Span of Infinity
The roundtable explores how no thing conceived in the mind has enjoyed a greater confluence of cosmological, mathematical, philosophical, psychological, and theological inquiry...
Alfred Scharff Goldhaber, Joel David Hamkins, Charles Liu, Eric Steinhart
October 11, 2014 · ▶ Video
Cancer: Body & Mind
The roundtable explores cancer through biological and psychological lenses. It addresses historical misconceptions about cancer, referencing Susan Sontag's Illness as Metaphor...
Andrea Califano, Selina Chen-Kiang, Susan Lutgendorf, Hans-Guido Wendel
September 20, 2014 · ▶ Video
Knowledge and Limitations
The roundtable explores fundamental questions about human knowledge: "What do we know about the universe and how do we know it?" Drawing from John Locke's inquiry into knowledge's...
Joseph Kohn, Tim Maudlin, Priyamvada Natarajan, Dorothea von Mücke
June 14, 2014
Responses: Poetry with Jean Valentine and Patrick Rosal
The "Responses" series involves poets reading aloud each other's work and offering commentary. This inaugural event featured two accomplished poets as participants.
Patrick Rosal, Jean Valentine
May 17, 2014
Women and the Work World
"The last 50 years has seen increasing parity of opportunity for, and achievement by, women in the work world as reflected in their increasing numbers in leadership roles in...
Graciela Chichilnisky, Marit Delozier, Nancy DiTomaso, Ernesto Reuben, Patricia Taylor
April 26, 2014
Women and Science
The roundtable opens with historical context, referencing a 4,700-year-old Egyptian hieroglyph identifying Merit-Ptah as "the Chief Physician." The event examines gender gaps in...
Cristina Alberini, Priyamvada Natarajan, Liz Phelps, Tal Rabin, Anna Ziegler