The CUSP Distinguished Speaker Series follows an intellectual theme that is the foundation of our year-long inquiry. This year's talks explore the theme of “Dissonance.” We will consider this theme within the fields of music, psychology and behavioral science, technology, philosophy and ethics, health and medicine, the biological sciences, and economics.

2019-20 Theme: Dissonance

Dissonance is typically defined as the absence of harmony. In music, a lack of conformity or unified pattern in sound can often lead to unpleasant compositions that can be jarring to the listener’s ears. However, this dissonance can be deliberately used as a tool to create moods that evoke powerful emotions, such as excitement, anguish, or sorrow. Dissonance engenders tension, but from this tension springs innovation and novel experiences. Beyond the confines of music, dissonance exists similarly in the ways in which artists, scholars, and scientists meld seemingly disparate media, inquiries, and philosophies to produce surprisingly consonant works. Dissonance reverberates in the pages of popular and poignant literary works, as the rising action among protagonists settles into satisfying narrative resolution. It echoes in the meeting rooms of large corporations and small start-ups alike, where individuals with diverse specializations and varying levels of expertise come together in pursuit of a shared goal. It rings in the awareness of the painful histories of conflict in nations and societies that, today, exist in a state of peace that could have never been anticipated. In many ways, dissonance embodies the rhythm of life itself, an existence fraught with the uncertain and unexpected that somehow still manages to give way to beauty and closure. More than just curiously placed notes on a musical staff, dissonance captures the value of navigating through and learning from the discomfort of the known past and an unknowable future.

Upcoming Talks

Ravi Kailas and Cathy Guo — Wednesday, September 11, 2019: The Striver vs. The Witness: An Entrepreneur's Search for Value — “CUSP Inaugural Lecture/Alumni Journeys”

Ravi Kailas, Entrepreneur
Cathy Guo '17CC, John Jay Scholar

6:00–8:00 p.m.
Davis Auditorium, Schapiro CEPSR

The "Myth of the Entrepreneur" is a critique of assumptions which are commonly held about the role of the entrepreneur. Specifically, that the differentiated ability of the entrepreneur rightfully deserves the majority of rewards (financial and otherwise) from a venture's success; that entrepreneurial ventures are net social impact positive by creating employment and productivity increases in the economy; and that the system of prioritizing rewards to shareholders creates aligned incentives at the firm level and the broader economy. What happens when an entrepreneur begins questioning these assumptions – and acknowledging the structural inequalities which are perpetuated by this model of entrepreneurship? What other models for designing firms can bring an entrepreneurial venture closer to positive social impact? As a serial entrepreneur, Kailas has built multi-billion dollar ventures in India throughout his career. At age 35, he experiences a catalyzing moment of dissonance – between his conception of an entrepreneur and how value is actually created and distributed. Leaving all three of his active ventures behind, he embarks on a five-year journey of meditation, introspection, and global research of the history of capitalism and various experimental structures of the firm. What emerges from that searching is an ongoing process of working through dissonance and contradiction – both personal and societal.

Biography

Ravi Kailas is a serial entrepreneur who has built and scaled ventures spanning telecom, software, financial options, infrastructure and more. He currently serves as the Chairman of the Board of Mytrah Group, one of India's largest independent renewable power producers. He spends much of his remaining time on Pravaha Trust, an open philanthropic foundation.

Cathy Guo graduated from Columbia in 2017 as a John Jay Scholar, summa cum laude, with a degree in Philosophy and Economics. She lives in Bangalore. 

J. Ralph — Tuesday, September 17, 2019: Evolocean

J. Ralph
Composer and Singer/Songwriter

6:00-8:00 p.m.
Davis Auditorium, Schapiro CEPSR

Three-time Academy Award-nominated composer, singer/songwriter and social activist Josh Ralph will discuss and perform an aleatoric, a performance piece for orchestra, choir and child, exploring species extinction and mankind’s effect on the ocean.

Biography

New York-based composer and singer/songwriter J. Ralph focuses on creating awareness and change through music and film. His music has sold more than 10 million records worldwide, reaching the No. 1 spot on the Billboard top 100 charts in over 22 countries and has raised significant money for various charities and causes.

Honored by the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History for “innovative and unique contributions to American music,” his professional career began as a teenager and was quickly signed to Atlantic Records by label president Jason Flom in one of the biggest record deals ever granted to a new artist. Following his debut album, J. Ralph has written and produced the music for numerous Grammy Award-winning artists, symphony orchestras, the United Nations, President Barack Obama, and more Oscar-winning/nominated documentaries than any other composer in the history of the Academy Awards. 

Mr. Ralph’s work features collaborations with some of the world’s most respected and iconic artists, including Sting, Willie Nelson, Wynton Marsalis, Joshua Bell, the London Symphony Orchestra, Sia, Norah Jones, Scarlett Johansson, Wu-Tang Clan, KRS-One, Anohni (FKA Antony & The Johnsons), Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Liza Minnelli, Stephen Stills, Youssou Ndour and Salif Keita, among many others. Described by The Hollywood Reporter as the "go-to producer of documentary film scores" and by Indiewire as “perhaps the best documentary composer working today,” J. Ralph is widely considered by many to have had a profound impact on the medium. Mr. Ralph has helped create some of the most influential documentaries of all time, revealing critically important social issues and culturally defining artists that “along with his partnering filmmakers and musicians, have spurned governments to act and introduced or amplified for millions of people, concerns that have might otherwise fallen under the radar,” according to the Smithsonian Institution.

Over the last decade, J. Ralph has written and produced the music for eight of the Oscar-winning/nominated films including MAN ON WIRE (2009), THE COVE (2010), HELL AND BACK AGAIN (2012), CHASING ICE (2013), FINDING VIVIAN MAIER (2015), VIRUNGA (2015), RACING EXTINCTION (2016), and JIM: THE JAMES FOLEY STORY (2017). J. Ralph’s most recent work is the original score for the 4 part Emmy-nominated docuseries event, Wu-Tang Clan: Of Mics And Men, featuring an original song co-written and performed with a founding member of the group, Method Man. Prior to that, J. Ralph unveiled the expansive EVOLOCEAN, an aleatoric, a performance piece for orchestra, choir and child, exploring species extinction and mankind’s effect on the ocean. Recorded live at Abbey Road Studios with over 150 musicians, EVOLOCEAN is performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, the London Voices Choir, and J. Ralph’s six month old daughter, Theodora Ralph. As a large scale improvisational, symphonic piece, it is highly unique, as there is no conductor and no traditional sheet music. A clock counting down from six minutes is used as a global time reference and as a representation of the 6th extinction period. Each musician of the orchestra is given the same four notated themes and a set of instructions describing the four thematic movements that occur at specific times during the performance. 

The world premiere of EVOLOCEAN was held at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, which declared the work “transformative” and acquired the piece for its permanent collection, along with several other of Mr. Ralph’s musical works that the Museum deemed “groundbreaking.” It marks the first time in the 115-year history of the London Symphony Orchestra that an experimental piece like this was ever performed and recorded. 

J. Ralph is a fellow of Yale University and a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Several of Mr. Ralph’s musical works have been acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. for inclusion in their permanent collections.

Katja Maria Vogt — Thursday, October 10, 2019: Disagreement and Relativism

Katja Maria Vogt
Professor of Philosophy
Columbia University

6:00-8:00 p.m.
Davis Auditorium, Schapiro CEPSR

If we disagree about how many people are in the room, we count them. If we disagree how the people in the room should act – whether someone's views are offensive, someone's actions hurtful, and so on – what do we do? We don't seem to have a method of resolving the disagreement. And typically, we are invested in our views. We care about what we see as good and bad, right and wrong. This talk examines what's special about value disagreement, why it is so persistent and so pervasive, and what, if any, the truth in relativism might be.

Biography

Katja Maria Vogt, Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University, is a specialist in ancient philosophy, ethics, and normative epistemology. She is a recipient of the Columbia Distinguished Faculty Award, and currently works on externally funded projects on Agency Imagination and Dogmatism and Skepticism. In her books and papers, she focuses on questions that figure both in ancient and contemporary discussions: What are values? What kinds of values are knowledge and truth? What does it mean to want one's life to go well? Vogt has published widely on skepticism and relativism. Her most recent book – Desiring the Good: Ancient Proposals and Contemporary Theory (Oxford University Press, 2017) – focuses on questions about human motivation and agency. She is an editor of Nous and serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Philosophy, Apeiron, and Rhizomata, and as Associate Editor for philosophy of language, epistemology, and logic of Dialogoi: Ancient Philosophy Today. For more information, please visit her website.

Scott B. Kaufman — Wednesday, October 23, 2019: The Light vs. The Dark Triad of Personality

Scott B. Kaufman
Psychologist, Author and Podcaster

6:00-8:00 p.m.
Davis Auditorium, Schapiro CEPSR

We all have a light and a dark side. However, we all vary in the extent to which we consistently exhibit light vs. dark patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in our daily lives. Over the past 15 years, psychologists have studied the “dark traits” that are associated with ethnically, morally, and socially aversive beliefs and behaviors. This includes traits such as narcissism, psychopathy, sadism, and spitefulness. However, in only the past few years have psychologists begun to investigate the light side of personality, and our capacities for forgiveness, trust, honesty, caring, acceptance, and seeing the best in others. In this talk, Kaufman will review his recent research on "everyday saints," and discuss implications of the light side of personality for healing the many divides we are seeing in the world today.

Biography

Scott Barry Kaufman is a psychologist at Columbia University who is interested in using psychological science to help all kinds of minds live a creative, fulfilling, and meaningful life. Kaufman has over 60 scientific publications on intelligence, creativity, personality, and well-being. In addition to writing the column Beautiful Minds for Scientific American, he also hosts The Psychology Podcast, which was named by Business Insider a podcast that “will change how you think about human behavior.” Kaufman is author and/or editor of 8 books, including Twice Exceptional: Supporting and Educating Bright and Creative Students with Learning Difficulties, Wired to Create: Unravelling the Mysteries of the Creative Mind (with Carolyn Gregoire), Ungifted: Intelligence Redefined, and The Complexity of Greatness: Beyond Talent or Practice. Kaufman received a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology from Yale University, and an M. Phil in experimental psychology from the University of Cambridge under a Gates Cambridge Scholarship. You can find out more on his website.

Brad Garton — Wednesday, October 30, 2019: Computer Music: A Dissonance of Disciplines?

Brad Garton
Professor of Music, Columbia University
Director, Columbia University Computer Music Center

6:00-8:00 p.m.
Davis Auditorium, Schapiro CEPSR

What exactly is computer music?  What makes a contemporary computer musician? Brad Garton will describe how different, perhaps "dissonant," disciplines such as music, art, computer science, data science (and others!) can harmonize to form an exciting area of technological creativity.

Biography

Jonny Podell — Wednesday, November 6, 2019: Consciousness Is the New Rock ‘N’ Roll

Jonny Podell
Music Agent
Owner, Podell Talent Agency

6:00-8:00 p.m.
Davis Auditorium, Schapiro CEPSR

Join Jonny as he divulges never-before-told stories from behind the scenes of rock ‘n’ roll’s greatest era, to the awakening that changed his life forever. “Rock ‘n’ roll is a great laboratory to study darkness and light” and amazing music was born out of this clash. In addition, Jonny will share some of the lessons he learned along the way.

Biography

Caroline Marvin — Wednesday, November 13, 2019: Topic TBA

Caroline Marvin
Professor of Psychology and Director of Academic Affairs
Department of Psychology, Columbia University

6:00-8:00 p.m.
Davis Auditorium, Schapiro CEPSR

Check back soon for more information!

Biography

Caroline Marvin teaches in the Department of Psychology, where she also serves as Director of Academic Affairs and Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Neuroscience & Behavior major. Her research examines curiosity and its neural substrates, aiming to understand how curiosity motivates information-seeking and drives learning.

Jason Flom — Wednesday, November 20, 2019: Why I Care About Criminal Justice

Jason Flom
Music Industry Executive and Social Activist
Founder and CEO of Lava Records

6:00-8:00 p.m.
Davis Auditorium, Schapiro CEPSR

This is the story of Jason From's crazy journey from a wannabe Jimi Hendrix to the Chairman & CEO of three of the biggest record companies in the world, and more importantly from being a drug-addicted college dropout to a pioneer in criminal justice reform. From's talk will focus on his career in music and how he found his true calling in fighting to end the disastrous failed social policy of mass incarceration.

Biography

Jason Flom is the Founder and CEO of Lava Records, Lava Music Publishing and Lava Media LLC. Flom previously served as Chairman and CEO at Atlantic Records, Virgin Records and Capitol Music Group, and he is personally responsible for launching acts such as Katy Perry, Kid Rock, Lorde and Greta Van Fleet. He is a leading philanthropist and expert on criminal justice issues and an internationally recognized and celebrated public speaker. Flom is the founding board member of the Innocence Project and serves on the boards of numerous criminal justice reform organizations. He is the host of the hit podcast, Wrongful Conviction, now in its seventh season, which features interviews with men and women who have spent decades in prison for crimes they did not commit, some even sentenced to death. Flom’s love for animals inspired his latest project, the children’s book Lulu Is a Rhinoceros, co-written with his daughter Allison Flom and released in June 2018. The book explores social themes addressing individuality, tolerance, and most importantly, acceptance, and launched with partnerships including Bonobos, Zappos and the African Wildlife Foundation.

Linda P. Fried — Tuesday, December 3, 2019: Public Health's Success – Our Longer Lives – Requires Changing Public Health

Linda P. Fried
Dean and DeLamar Professor of Public Health
Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University

6:00-8:00 p.m.
Davis Auditorium, Schapiro CEPSR

In the past century, an unprecedented, historic transformation of society has occurred as life expectancy has increased by 30 years. Around the world, we expect 80-90% of babies born to survive past 65 years. Public health underlies three-quarters of this success, and is the basis for maintaining it for future generations. This phenomenon demands that we build a society that enables every person to arrive at old age healthy and remain healthy. Public health needs to be at the center of this transformation, as health is the key in the lock that will unlock the opportunities of longer lives. This will take 40 years to build, during which time Columbia students can lead and personally benefit from this.

Biography

Linda P. Fried, MD, MPH, is Dean and DeLamar Professor of Public Health at the Mailman School. Dr. Fried is a geriatrician, epidemiologist, and internationally renowned scientist who has propelled our understanding of how to create healthy aging. She has led the scientific work to define the medical syndrome of frailty and its causes and prevention as keys to optimizing health. She is the recipient of numerous international awards and was named a “Living Legend in Medicine” by the U.S. Congress and one of the most influential scientific minds of the past decade by Thompson Reuters.

Marilyn Minter — Thursday, January 23, 2020: Topic TBA

6:00-8:00 p.m.
Davis Auditorium, Schapiro CEPSR

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Biography

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Lyle Owerko — Tuesday, January 28, 2020: Lyle Owerko, Photographer

Lyle Owerko
Photojournalist, Artist and Filmmaker

6:00-8:00 p.m.
Davis Auditorium, Schapiro CEPSR

Lyle Owerko is a photographer and filmmaker with a diverse roster of clients including major brands, corporations and human rights groups. Perceptive and knowledgeable of urban movements, his intuitive and technically crafted images have found their way in to the lexicons of both pop culture and photo journalism. On September 11, 2001, he shot the cover image for Time magazine's coverage of 9/11. Framed in somber black, instead of TIME's usual all-red border, his picture delivered one of the most iconic moments in history through unforgettable detail. Lyle's current projects seek to bridge social and political gaps while celebrating the unique perspectives and dialogues of our modern world.

Biography

A photojournalist, artist and filmmaker, Lyle Owerko has documented a diverse range of subjects, from early 80s neon-colored BMX bikes to members of Kenya’s Samburu tribe. However, his most iconic image is the 2001 photograph The Second Plane, capturing Flight 175 as it struck the second tower of the World Trade Center on September 11, which appeared on the cover of the September 14, 2001 issue of Time magazine, stands as an unforgettable record of a national tragedy. Often working with human rights organizations, such as Charity:Water and the United Nations Millennium Promise, Owerko frequently merges art with a social mission in his work. His seminal body of work,The Boombox Project, began in 2005 as documentation of vintage portable stereos and now includes a series of sculptures and a documentary on the subject. In 2010, Abrams Image published a book of those photos, which included a foreword by Spike Lee and interviews with some of the most distinct contributors of that era. Owerko’s work is included in the permanent collection of the Library of Congress, and is included in the permanent collection at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, among other galleries and institutions globally.

Robert G. O’Meally — Thursday, February 13, 2020: Antagonistic Cooperation: Dissonance, Jazz and American Culture

Robert G. O'Meally
Zora Neale Hurston Professor of English and Comparative Literature
Founder and Director, Center for Jazz Studies, Columbia University

6:00-8:00 p.m.
Davis Auditorium, Schapiro CEPSR

Biography

Robert G. O’Meally is the Zora Neale Hurston Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, where he has served on the faculty for twenty-five years. The founder and director of Columbia’s Center for Jazz Studies, O'Meally is the author of The Craft of Ralph Ellison, Lady Day: The Many Faces of Billie Holiday, The Jazz Singers, and Romare Bearden: A Black Odyssey. His edited volumes include The Jazz Cadence of American Culture, Living With Music: Ralph Ellison’s Essays on Jazz, History and Memory in African American Culture, The Norton Anthology of African American Literature (co-editor), and the Barnes and Noble editions of Mark Twain, Herman Melville, and Frederick Douglass. For his production of a Smithsonian record set called The Jazz Singers, he was nominated for a Grammy Award. O’Meally has co-curated exhibitions for The Smithsonian Institution, Jazz at Lincoln Center and The High Museum of Art (Atlanta). He has held Guggenheim and Cullman Fellowships, and was a recent fellow at Columbia's new Institute for Ideas and Imagination at the Global Center/Paris. His new books are The Romare Bearden Reader (edited for Duke University Press, 2019) and Antagonistic Cooperation: Collage, Jazz, and American Fiction (Columbia University Press, 2020).

Shree K. Nayar — Tuesday, February 25, 2020: Future Cameras: Redefining the Image

Shree K. Nayar
T.C. Chang Professor of Computer Science
Columbia University

6:00-8:00 p.m.
Davis Auditorium, Schapiro CEPSR

Computational cameras use new optics to capture a coded image, and an appropriate algorithm to decode the captured image. This approach enables us to produce images that are rich, immersive and interactive. In this talk, we will show examples of computational cameras that are transforming the way visual information is captured, communicated and perceived by both humans and machines. 

Biography

Shree K. Nayar is the T. C. Chang Professor of Computer Science at Columbia University. He heads the Columbia Vision Laboratory (CAVE), which develops advanced computational imaging and computer vision systems. He received his PhD degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. For his research and teaching he has received several honors including the David Marr Prize (1990 and 1995), the David and Lucile Packard Fellowship (1992), the National Young Investigator Award (1993), the NTT Distinguished Scientific Achievement Award (1994), the Keck Foundation Award for Excellence in Teaching (1995), the Columbia Great Teacher Award (2006) and the Carnegie Mellon Alumni Achievement Award (2009). For his seminal contributions to computer vision and computational imaging, he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2008, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2011, and the National Academy of Inventors in 2014. 

Venkat Venkatasubramanian — Monday, March 2, 2020: How Much Income Inequality Is Fair?

Venkat Venkatasubramanian
Samuel Ruben-Peter G. Viele Professor of Engineering
Department of Chemical Engineering, Columbia University

6:00-8:00 p.m.
Davis Auditorium, Schapiro CEPSR

Extreme economic inequality is widely seen as a serious threat to the future of stable and vibrant capitalist democracies. In 2015, the World Economic Forum in Davos identified deepening income inequality as the number one challenge of our time. Yet some inequality is inevitable, even desirable and necessary, for capitalist societies to work productively. As different people have different skills, and different capacities for work, they make different contributions in a society, some more, others less. Therefore, it is only fair that those who contribute more earn more.

But how much more? What is the fairest inequality of income?

This critical question is at the heart of the inequality debate. The debate is not so much about inequality per se as it is about fairness. This central question about fair inequality has remained unanswered in economics and in political philosophy for over two centuries. Mainstream economics has offered little guidance on fairness and the ideal distribution of income in a free-market society. Political philosophy, meanwhile, has much to say about fairness, yet relies on qualitative theories, such as the ones by Rawls and by Nozick, which cannot be verified by empirical data.

In this talk, Professor Venkatasubramanian will discuss his recent work on answering this question quantitatively. His theory leads to surprising insights into political philosophy, economics, game theory, statistical mechanics, information theory, and systems engineering perspectives to this question.

Biography

Professor Venkat Venkatasubramanian is Samuel Ruben-Peter G. Viele Professor of Engineering in the Department of Chemical Engineering, Professor of Computer Science (Affiliate), and Professor of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research (Affiliate) at Columbia University. He earned his Ph. D. in Chemical Engineering at Cornell, M.S. in Physics at Vanderbilt, and B. Tech. in Chemical Engineering at the University of Madras, India.

Venkat is a complex dynamical systems theorist interested in developing mathematical models of their structure, function, and behavior from fundamental conceptual principles. His natural tendency is to conduct curiosity-driven research in a style that might be considered impressionistic, emphasizing conceptual issues over mere techniques. He strives to create a simplified but essentially correct model of the reality that he studies. Venkat's research interests are diverse, ranging from AI to systems engineering to theoretical physics to economics, but they are generally focused on the theme of understanding complexity and emergent behavior in different domains. Venkat’s new book, How Much Inequality is Fair? Mathematical Principles of a Moral, Optimal and Stable Capitalist Society, was published by Columbia University Press in 2017.

Professor Venkatasubramanian received the Norris Shreve Award for Outstanding Teaching in Chemical Engineering three times at Purdue University. He won the Computing in Chemical Engineering Award from AIChE and is a Fellow of AIChE. In 2011, the College of Engineering at Purdue University recognized his contributions with the Research Excellence Award. He currently serves as an editor for Computers and Chemical Engineering. Venkat’s non-academic interests include comparative theology, classical music and cricket.

David Stark — Wednesday, April 8, 2020: Diversity and Performance: Dissonance for Discovery

David Stark
Arthur Lehman Professor of Sociology
Columbia University

6:00-8:00 p.m.
Davis Auditorium, Schapiro CEPSR

One of the few things about which sociologists and economists agree is that friction is bad. The smooth flow of information is entirely taken for granted as a good. For sociologists in particular, coordination is based on common values and shared understandings. But, for example, Professor Stark and his tire dealer know that there are times when friction is valuable. The too smooth surface on an icy road can be a path to calamity. This lecture points to the value of productive tension. It draws on research experiences at three different levels of social organization – the societal level, the organizational level, and the team level – using a variety of methods (comparative historical, ethnographic, experimental, and network analytic). Dissonance can be a means for discovery. Under the right organizational conditions, misunderstanding can be an asset.

Biography

David Stark is Arthur Lehman Professor of Sociology at Columbia, where he directs the Center on Organizational Innovation. He is also Professor of Social Science at the University of Warwick. His book, The Sense of Dissonance: Accounts of Worth in Economic Life (Princeton University Press 2011), is an ethnographic account of how organizations and their members search for what is valuable. Stark has many publications in both Europe and the United States, including articles in the American Sociological Review (1986, 1988) and the American Journal of Sociology (1996, 2001, 2006, 2010, 2015). Among other awards, he is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship (2002) and an Honorary Doctorate from the Ecole normale superieure de Cachan (2013).

Stark’s current research is supported by a five-year Advanced Career Award from the European Research Council for a project on “Diversity and Performance: Networks of Cognition in Markets and Teams.” His CV, papers and presentations are available on his website. His project website can be linked at Diversity and Performance.

Elisabeth Ladenson — Date/Time TBA: Topic TBA — “CUSP Core Connections”

6:00-8:00 p.m.
Davis Auditorium, Schapiro CEPSR

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Biography

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Homi Bhabha — Date/Time TBA: Topic TBA 

6:00-8:00 p.m.
Davis Auditorium, Schapiro CEPSR

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Biography

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Stuart Firestein — Monday, April 20, 2020: Ignorance, Failure and Uncertainty: The Optimism of Science

Stuart Firestein
Professor of Biological Sciences
Columbia University

6:00-8:00 p.m.
Davis Auditorium, Schapiro CEPSR

The first, and possibly the most important invention of science was ignorance. Beginning with Francis Bacon, Rene Descartes and others, this new way of thinking no longer accepted authority, whether it be the church, the state or Aristotle, as the source of knowledge. Thus, virtually all that was considered known became quite suddenly unknown. Modern science still traffics primarily in the unknown, questions being more important than facts. We use experiments, which are designed to mostly fail, and we seek to understand fundamental uncertainty as the true state of the universe. In all of this we remain optimistic because there is more left to be done than has been accomplished. Relevant to the theme of dissonance is that while ignorance, failure and uncertainty are considered by scientists to be fundamental to the success of science, the general public seems to believe that science is facts, successful discoveries and truth.

Biography

Dr. Stuart Firestein is the former Chair of Columbia University's Department of Biological Sciences, where his laboratory studies the vertebrate olfactory system, possibly the best chemical detector on the face of the planet. Aside from its molecular detection capabilities, the olfactory system serves as a model for investigating general principles and mechanisms of signaling and perception in the brain. His laboratory seeks to answer that fundamental human question: How do I smell?

Dedicated to promoting the accessibility of science to a public audience, Firestein serves as an advisor for the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s program for the Public Understanding of Science. Recently he was awarded the 2011 Lenfest Distinguished Columbia Faculty Award for excellence in scholarship and teaching. He is a Fellow of the AAAS, an Alfred Sloan Fellow and a Guggenheim Fellow. At Columbia, he is on the advisory boards of the Center for Science and Society (CSS) and the Presidential Scholars in Society and Neuroscience – both centers for interdisciplinary work between the sciences and the humanities. His book on the workings of science for a general audience, Ignorance: How It Drives Science, was released by Oxford University Press in 2012. His new book, Failure: Why Science is So Successful, appeared in October 2015. Both books have been translated into 10 languages.

Past Talks

Gareth Williams — Friday, August 30, 2019: The Core and More: The What, Why and How of a Columbia Education — “CUSP/ASP Annual NSOP Lecture”

Gareth Williams
Anthon Professor of Latin Language and Literature
Director of Undergraduate Studies
Department of Classics, Columbia University

10:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m.
Faculty Room, Low Memorial Library

This talk is designed to describe how the Core contributes to your larger intellectual trajectory at Columbia; how it fits in with and strengthens the competencies that a Columbia education aims to foster; and what you can expect to find when you enter the classroom in such courses as Literature Humanities, Contemporary Civilization and the other Core offerings. A period of question and answer will follow the talk.

Biography

Gareth Williams has taught at Columbia since 1992. He received a Ph.D. in 1990 from Cambridge University for a dissertation on Ovid’s exilic writings that subsequently resulted in two books: the first, Banished Voices: Readings in Ovid’s Exile Poetry (Cambridge, 1994), and the second, The Curse of Exile: A Study of Ovid’s Ibis, Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society Supplementary Volume 19 (Cambridge, 1996). Two distinct research phases followed, the first of which focused on the Latin ethical writings of Lucius Annaeus Seneca. Two monographs resulted, the first an edition with commentary of L. Annaeus Seneca: Selected Moral Dialogues. De Otio, De Brevitate Vitae (Cambridge, 2003); the second, The Cosmic Viewpoint: A Study of Seneca’s Natural Questions (Oxford, 2012), was awarded the Goodwin Award of Merit by the Society for Classical Studies in 2014. Most recently, among various other projects and edited volumes in the area of Roman philosophy, his research has focused on the socio-literary culture of Renaissance Venice, an interest that recently resulted in the publication of Pietro Bembo on Etna: The Ascent of a Venetian Humanist (Oxford, 2017).