Should We Continue to Study Race?
Kenneth Warren, professor of English and the humanities at the University of Chicago, poses the question of what role the study of race should play in the coming years. Warren places the study of race in its historical context, looking back to central...
A conversation with Studs Terkel and Andrew Patner
In June 2004, WFMTs Andrew Patner X81 interviewed legendary Chicagoan Studs Terkel (Ph.B32, J.D.34) at an event held at the University of Chicagos annual alumni weekend.Patner, host of WFMTsCritical Thinking with Andrew Patner, probed the noted stortyt...
Carnal Knowledge
In religious texts, mythology, literature and popular culture, sex (and sometimes love) is often considered a key to unlocking hidden truths. In her book 'The Bedtrick: Tales of Sex and Masquerade,' Wendy Doniger explores the 'bedtrick' (where one part...
The Correspondence of Queen Elizabeth I and King James VI
Queen Elizabeth I of England never married or produced an heir, yet she played a unique role in selecting England's next king. As University of Chicago English professor Janel Mueller explains, Elizabeth engaged in a long-running correspondence with Ki...
End-of-Life Decisions
In this article from 2000, based on a four-part forum held at Columbia University, experts on end-of-life issues discuss the ethics of deciding when to prolong the lives of patients. They debate the relative merits of living wills and whether a person ...
Emotion, Rationality and Human Potential
In making decisions, do we prioritize an emotional response or logic seemingly achieved through dispassionate analysis? And are these two approaches as distant as we might assume? John Cacioppo, professor of psychology at the University of Chicago, app...
Egil Skallagrimsson and the Viking Ideal
Much of what we know about the Vikings comes to us from the histories written by their victims, who normally remember them as ruthless marauders. But how did the Vikings portray themselves? In a lecture prepared in conjunction with the millennial anniv...
Digital Media and the Egalitarian Classroom
Candace Vogler, associate professor of philosophy at The University of Chicago, examines how virtual classrooms help her overcome common pedagogical issues. Faced with large class sizes and oftentimes timid students, Vogler discovered that online discu...
Creoles, Pidgins and the Evolution of Languages
Salikoko S. Mufwene, professor and former chair of the department of linguistics at the University of Chicago, looks at some of the issues surrounding the evolution of English. Drawing on material in his book, 'The Ecology of Language Evolution,' Mufwe...
Civil Rights and Military Tribunals
Can military tribunals protect the rights of the accused and offer fundamentally fair trials? What role, if any, will there be for review by civilian courts? These and other questions were taken up at a January 17, 2002, panel discussion at the Univers...