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Tag: ethics

Providential Modernity Seminar with David Cook

The next Providential Modernity seminar will meet at 1:00PM on Thursday, January 9, in the Ahmadieh Family Conference Room (West Duke Building, room 101). The seminar will feature David Cook (Religion, Rice University) discussing his project, “Mainstream and popular Ottoman-era Muslim apocalypses.”

A vegetarian lunch will be served; please RSVP to receive a copy of the paper (and request parking on East Campus, if needed) to Amber Díaz Pearson.

Abstract:

There has been comparatively little work on Ottoman apocalyptic narratives, other than Cornell Fleischer’s work on imperial apocalypse. This lecture and discussion will focus upon several apocalyptic narratives chosen because of their representative nature of the material overall. Al-Suyuti (d. 1505) was a mainstream Sunni religious figure from Egypt, who tried to prove that the world would not end in the hijri year 1000/1591-2. Unfortunately, his treatise on the subject, while proving his basic point, raised the question of when it would end. As his treatise then serves as a basis for calculations for the next 400 some years, it is of considerable interest.
The anonymous calculations keyed to the year 1000 represent popular Islamic beliefs, and although much of the material is based upon an Islamic frame, the apocalyptic stories diverge considerably from the standard. Most likely it was originally a sermon or a popular tale taken down.
The lecture will use these basic apocalypses to provoke discussion of the different strands of apocalypse: mainstream, speculative Sufi, and popular during the Ottoman period.

The Providential Modernity seminar brings together faculty and graduate students from several area universities on a monthly basis to discuss work in the areas of history, political theology, and comparative sociology from Antiquity to the present. A key goal of the seminar is to place scholars of religion into conversation with one another and address scholarly challenges emerging from the post-secular age. “Providential modernity” encompasses a variety of social and political hopes, as well as anxieties, about the promise of history, sometimes expressed in millenarianism and apocalypticism, at other times in peaceful theodicies. In modern times, secular surrogates for providentialism found expression in revolution, social change, and the transformation of knowledge — ideas that have been conceptualized from Hegel to Fukuyama in discussions of the End of History. Many put their “faith” in “providential modernity,” while others, in despair, denied that history had any meaning at all. At the core of our deliberations will be an effort to deepen our grasp of the ways in which religions, Western and Eastern, both converge and differ in their understanding of providentialism, and how scholars may respond to the powerful working of religion in the postmodern age.

“Tech Ethics/Corporate Ethics” Dinner Roundtable Conversation

The digital economy is increasingly introducing technologically-derived threats to security: threats to data privacy and information security; hacking and data breaches; cyberattacks; and new forms of cyberwarfare and information warfare, such as disinformation campaigns by domestic and foreign entities. Some experts have called for greater oversight of tech companies, and more robust general data privacy laws and data protection regulation. Other experts have called for more cooperative regulatory relationships between the public and private sectors. The promotion of corporate ethical norms and practices have been considered critical in supporting successful self-regulation models within the tech industry.

Roundtable Conversation|

Technically Right at the Kenan Institute for Ethics is pleased to host a Dinner Roundtable on the topic of “Tech Ethics/Corporate Ethics” at 5:30 pm on Monday, November 11, in the Ahmadieh Family Conference Room (West Duke Building, room 101), located in the Kenan Institute for Ethics on East Campus. The event will be cosponsored by the Future of Privacy Forum and the Duke Law and Technology Review. Members of the Duke and Durham community are welcome to join a dinner conversation that will be facilitated by Margaret Hu, Kenan Institute for Ethics, with opening comments and questions framed by David Hoffman, Director of Security Policy and Global Privacy, Intel Corporation; and Jules Polonetsky, CEO of the Future of Privacy Forum.

Please RSVP to Jeremy Buotte <jeremy.buotte@duke.edu>. SCROLL DOWN FOR PARKING INFORMATION (download parking map PDF).

BIOS|

Jules Polonetsky serves as CEO of the Future of Privacy Forum, a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit organization that serves as a catalyst for privacy leadership and scholarship, advancing principled data practices in support of emerging technologies. FPF is supported by the chief privacy officers of more than 130 leading companies, several foundations, as well as by an advisory board comprised of the country’s leading academics and advocates. FPF’s current projects focus on Big Data, Mobile, Location, Apps, the Internet of Things, Wearables, De-Identification, Connected Cars and Student Privacy. Jules previous roles have included serving as Chief Privacy Officer at AOL and before that at DoubleClick, as Consumer Affairs Commissioner for New York City, as an elected New York State Legislator and as a congressional staffer, and as an attorney.

 

David Hoffman is Director of Security Policy and Global Privacy Officer at Intel Corporation, in which capacity he covers Intel’s privacy compliance activities, legal support for privacy and security and external privacy and security policy engagements.
Mr. Hoffman serves on the Department of Homeland Security’s Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee and the Board of Directors of the National Cyber Security Alliance. Mr. Hoffman has also served on the US Federal Trade Commission’s Online Access and Security Committee, the Center for Strategic and International Studies Cyber Security Commission, the Steering Committee for BBBOnline, the TRUSTe Board of Directors, and the Board of the International Association of Privacy Professionals. Mr. Hoffman has a JD from The Duke University School of Law, where he was a Member of the Duke Law Journal. Mr. Hoffman also received an AB from Hamilton College.

 


Technically Right advances ethical tech policy and innovation through interdisciplinary research, coursework for undergraduates and graduate students, and convenings of scholars and practitioners.

Communities and Congregations: a conversation with Gerald Taylor

Please join us for a conversation with Gerald Taylor about organizing at the intersection of churches and other civic groups, and how that organizing interacts with politics in NC. Free and open to the public. Refreshments served. Parking provided in the Bryan Center Garage (PGIV) — RSVP on the web form to receive your parking pass and instructions. Email amber.diaz@duke.edu for more information or questions about parking.

Gerald Taylor is one of the most creative experienced organizers and strategic campaign planners and trainers in the country. For nearly 35 years, he was a national senior organizer of the IAF and for 26 of those years the IAF’s Southeast Regional Director. He retired from the IAF in 2014. In 2015, he co-founded Advance Carolina a state-wide 501c(4). Advance is creating a new mechanism for building democratic power and governance by combining the best of social media and respectful relational organizing. He has trained thousands of Clergy, lay leaders, unions’ staff and leaders, government and private sector institutional leaders over the past forty years and lectured at colleges and universities including Duke University, Vanderbilt University, and UNC Chapel-Hill on theories of social change and community organizing.

Hosted by the faculty working group on race, religion, and politics, supported by an Intellectual Community Planning Grant from the Duke University Office of the Provost. Co-sponsored by the Kenan Institute for Ethics and Religions and Public Life at KIE.

Kenan Distinguished Lecture in Ethics: Cornel West and Robert George

The public is invited to the Kenan Distinguished Lecture in Ethics: a conversation with Cornel West (Harvard) and Robert George (Princeton) on friendship and faith across political difference.

Moderated by Joseph Winters (Duke, Religious Studies).

Reception to follow.

 

Parking:

Free Parking in the Lower Allen Lot and Bryan Center Surface Lot (ADA).  Paid hourly parking in the Bryan Center Garage: (map)

  • Free parking in the Lower Allen Lot (map). 

allen lot to goodson

 

  • Free ADA and accessible parking in the Bryan Center Surface Lot (map).

bryan center lot to goodson

 

More about our lecturers:

Cornel West is a prominent and provocative democratic intellectual.  He is Professor of the Practice of Public Philosophy at Harvard University and holds the title of Professor Emeritus at Princeton University. He has also taught at Union Theological Seminary, Yale, Harvard, and the University of Paris.  Cornel West graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard in three years and obtained his M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy at Princeton. He has written 20 books and has edited 13.  Though he is best known for his classics Race Matters — which celebrates its 25th Anniversary with a new release, Democracy Matters, his memoir, Brother West:  Living and Loving Out Loud, and the critically acclaimed Black Prophetic Fire.  Dr. West is a frequent guest on the Bill Maher Show, Colbert Report, CNN, C-Span and Democracy Now.  

He made his film debut in the Matrix – and was the commentator (with Ken Wilbur) on the official trilogy released in 2004.  He also has appeared in over 25 documentaries and films including Examined Life, Call & Response, Sidewalk and Stand.

Last, he has made three spoken word albums including Never Forget, collaborating with Prince, Jill Scott, Andre 3000, Talib Kweli, KRS-One and the late Gerald Levert.  His spoken word interludes were featured on Terence Blanchard’s Choices (which won the Grand Prix in France for the best Jazz Album of the year of 2009), The Cornel West Theory’s Second Rome, Raheem DeVaughn’s Grammy-nominated Love & War: Masterpeace, and most recently on Bootsy Collins’ The Funk Capital of the World.  In short, Cornel West has a passion to communicate to a vast variety of publics in order to keep alive the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. – a legacy of telling the truth and bearing witness to love and justice.

 

Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. He is also a Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School.

In addition to his academic service, Professor George has served as Chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. He has also served on the President’s Council on Bioethics, as a presidential appointee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights, and as the U.S. member of UNESCO’s World Commission on the Ethics of Science and Technology.

He is a former Judicial Fellow at the Supreme Court of the United States, where he received the Justice Tom C. Clark Award.

He serves on the boards of the John M. Templeton Foundation Religion Trust, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Ethics and Public Policy Center, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, and the Center for Individual Rights, among others.

Professor George is author of Making Men Moral:  Civil Liberties and Public Morality (Oxford University Press, 1993), In Defense of Natural Law (Oxford University Press, 1999), The Clash of Orthodoxies (ISI, 2001) and Conscience and Its Enemies (ISI, 2013). He is co-author of Conjugal Union: What Marriage Is (Cambridge University Press, 2014), Embryo: A Defense of Human Life (2nd edition, Doubleday, 2011), Body-Self Dualism in Contemporary Ethics and Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2008), and What is Marriage? (Encounter, 2012). He is editor of several volumes, including Natural Law Theory: Contemporary Essays (Oxford University Press, 1992), The Autonomy of Law: Essays on Legal Positivism (Oxford University Press, 1996), Natural Law, Liberalism, and Morality (Oxford University Press, 1996), and Great Cases in Constitutional Law (Princeton University Press, 2000), and co-editor of the Cambridge Companion to Natural Law (Cambridge University Press, 2017)

Professor George’s articles and review essays have appeared in the Harvard Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, the Columbia Law Review, the University of Chicago Law Review, the Review of Politics, the Review of Metaphysics, and the American Journal of Jurisprudence.  He has also written for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, First Things, the Boston Review, and the Times Literary Supplement.

A graduate of Swarthmore College, Professor George holds M.T.S. and J.D. degrees from Harvard University and the degrees of D.Phil., B.C.L., and D.C.L. from Oxford University. He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa at Swarthmore and received a Frank Knox Fellowship from Harvard for graduate study in law and philosophy at Oxford.  He holds nineteen honorary degrees, including doctorates of law, letters, ethics, science, divinity, humane letters, civil law, law and moral values, humanities, and juridical science.

He is a recipient of the United States Presidential Citizens Medal, the Honorific Medal for the Defense of Human Rights of the Republic of Poland, the Bradley Prize for Intellectual and Civic Achievement, the Philip Merrill Award of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, the Paul Bator Award of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy, the Sidney Hook Award of the National Association of Scholars, a Silver Gavel Award of the American Bar Association, the Charles Fried Award of the Harvard Law School Federalist Society, the Irving Kristol Award of the American Enterprise Institute, and Princeton University’s President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching.

He has given the John Dewey Lecture in Philosophy of Law at Harvard, the Guido Calabresi Lecture in Law and Religion at Yale, the Elizabeth Anscombe Memorial Lecture in Bioethics at Oxford, the Sir Malcolm Knox Lecture in Philosophy at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, and the Frank Irvine Lecture in Law at Cornell.

Professor George is general editor of New Forum Books, a Princeton University Press series of interdisciplinary works in law, culture, and politics.  He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and is Of Counsel to the law firm of Robinson & McElwee.

Baylor University has named its new Washington, D.C.-based program the “Robert P. George Initiative in Faith, Ethics, and Public Policy.”

 

The 2019 Kenan Distinguished Lecture is cosponsored by the Duke Divinity School, Department of Religious Studies, American Program in Grand Strategy, Department of African & African American Studies, and Department of Political Science.

The Ethics of Now: Novelist Marlon James in Conversation

The Kenan Institute for Ethics kicks off its 2018 discussion series, “The Ethics of Now,” with a dialogue between renowned contemporary novelist Marlon James and Duke professor of history Adriane Lentz-Smith.

**This talk is free and open to the public.
**Use Uber code edz9m1r and get a ride to and from the talk! (Limit $10/ride.)

Marlon James’s novel A Brief History of Seven Killings received the 2015 Man Booker Prize, making him the first Jamaican author to win the U.K.’s most prestigious literary award. The novel also received the 2015 American Book Award, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, was a New York Times Notable Book, and was named a “best book of the year” by the Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Newsweek, Time and numerous other publications.

As described by Michiko Kakutani in the New York Times, A Brief History of Seven Killings “launched Marlon James into the world of literary stardom, drawing comparisons to William Faulkner by way of Tarantino.”

Marlon James is also the author of The Book of Night Women, a finalist for the 2010 National Book Critics Circle Award in fiction and an NAACP Image Award. His first novel, John Crow’s Devil, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for first fiction and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, as well as a New York Times Editors’ Choice. In 2018, James received an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature.

“With powerful writerly vision and genius for creating voices that speak to the painful intensity of human experience, James crafts worlds that illuminate the brutal beauty of past and present,” says Lentz-Smith.

Marlon James was born in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1970. He graduated from the University of the West Indies in 1991 with a degree in language and literature, and from Wilkes University in Pennsylvania in 2006 with an MA in creative writing. Since 2007, he has been teaching English and creative writing at Macalester College; he divides his time between Minnesota and New York.

In his presentations, James addresses topics related to writing and the writing process, as well as issues pertaining to the history of the Caribbean, race and gender in the U.S. and U.K., and youth subcultures as expressed in literature and music such as hip-hop and reggae.

His book Black Leopard, Red Wolf, the first novel in his fantasy Dark Star Trilogy series, will be published in February 2019.