Norton Memorial lecture at UD set Oct. 23

5:38 p.m., Oct. 15, 2004--Richard Rorty, professor of comparative literature and professor of philosophy at Stanford University, will present the University of Delaware Norton Memorial Lecture, “The Priority of Imagination Over Reason,” at 7:15 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 23, 7:15 p.m., in Clayton Hall Conference Center.

The lecture, which is free and open to the public, is part of a three-day Ethics and Life Sciences Conference to be held Friday-Sunday, Oct. 22-24, which will bring together experts from U.S. and foreign universities to discuss cloning, genetically modified foods and stem cell research.

No registration is required to attend the Oct. 23 lecture, which will be followed by a reception.

Rorty, who has taught at Yale and Princeton universities, Wellesley College and the University of Virginia, has received several honors, including fellowship awards from the Guggenheim and MacArthur foundations.

The three-day conference will examine a variety of topics, including animal research, vegetarianism, environmental policy, euthanasia, genetic enhancement, children’s rights, cosmetic surgery and pharmaceutical issues.

A number of panel discussions also will be held during the conference, including one with Alfonso Gomez-Lobo of the Catholic Scholars Association and U.S. Rep. Michael Castle of Delaware on stem cell research at 9 a.m., Saturday, Oct. 23.

The following speakers will be featured in plenary sessions:

Art Caplan, Emmanuel and Robert Hart Professor of Bioethics, chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, 7:30 p.m., Oct. 22, “Is It Wrong to Try to Enhance our Brains? Health and the Pursuit of Perfection”;

Sheila Jasanoff, Pforzheimer Professor of Science and Technology Studies at Harvard University, 4 p.m., Oct. 23, “Making Ethical Kinds: The Comparative Politics of Embryo Research in Europe and the U.S.”;

Mark Sagoff, senior research scholar on the environment and environmental ethics at the University of Maryland, 6 p.m., Oct. 23, “Towards a Sustainable Environmentalism”; and

Ganesh Kishore, vice president of technology, DuPont Agriculture & Nutrition, 1 p.m., Sunday, Oct. 24, “Agriculture and Biotechnology--Opportunities in Food, Energy, Health and Environment.”

The conference is cosponsored by the Delaware Interdisciplinary Ethics Program and the Baumgardt Fund of the American Philosophical Association. It is also funded by the National Science Foundation, Delaware Biotechnology Institute, the UD Class of 1955 Ethics Endowment fund, the Unidel Foundation and UD’s College of Arts and Sciences.

The Norton lecture is cosponsored by the David Norton Memorial Fund, honoring the late UD professor of philosophy, the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies program, the Department of Philosophy and the Makaguchi Foundation.

For more information, a complete schedule and online registration for the conference, which is open to the public, visit [www.dbi.udel.edu/ethics]. Onsite registration will be allowed. The registration fee is $25 and free for students with ID.

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