‘Worlds Enough and Time’ theme unites three colleges
Belmont University hosts its 13th annual Humanities Symposium this week, featuring authors, poets, researchers, philosophers and professors from across the country.
Centered on the theme “Worlds Enough and Time,” the Belmont 2014 Humanities Symposium will occur Sept. 18 through 29 and references English author Andrew Marvell’s famous carpe diem poem, which begins with the phrase, “Had we but world enough and time,” transformed to allude as well to the University theme of “Living in a Global Community.” The symposium seeks to stimulate intellectual conversation through its 45 events, which together will engage in a 10-day conversation designed to increase interactions with different cultures, religions, political views as well as scientific and historical understandings of time to dislodge the default view and open students to broader understanding of the subject.
English Professor Maggie Monteverde, who is chairing the symposium, said, “This year our annual symposium approaches the elusive but profoundly intriguing and important topic of time from a wide variety of disciplinary angles. The subject itself was selected as a way of marking this significant moment in the lives of the newly formed College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, of which the School of Humanities is a member, College of Sciences and Mathematics and College of Theology and Christian Ministry as they adapt to their common space of the Wedgewood Academic Center.”
The symposium begins Sept. 18 with Belmont faculty member Dr. John Paine discussing “Stop-Time: Present, Past and Future Walk into a Bar” for the annual Monteverde lecture and concludes Sept. 29 with a traditional summative panel. Ten featured speakers will each address this topic from a different angle and disciplinary base including physics, philosophy, theology, literature, social psychology and documentary. Among those speakers are: local academics Thomas Weiler of Vanderbilt University and David Lavery of Middle Tennessee State University; Eva Brann of St. John’s College, recipient of the 2005 National Humanities Medal; Robert Levine of Cal State, Fresno, whose book, The Geography of Time, received the Otto Klinebery Interculture and International Relations Award; and filmmaker Louise Woehrle, whose documentaries have won awards at multiple film festivals. All events are free and open to the public. For more information, visit http://www.belmont.edu/liberal-arts/humanities_symposium/index.html. For a complete schedule of events, click here or check the Campus Calendar.
