Scholar Offers Insight into Dead Sea Scrolls

CHESTERTOWN, MD—One of the foremost experts on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Lawrence Schiffman, will lecture on the topic at Washington College on Monday, October 22. His presentation,  “Scholars, Scrolls and Scandals: The Dead Sea Scrolls, Judaism and Christianity,” will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Litrenta Lecture Hall of the John S. Toll Science Center on the College campus, 300 Washington Avenue.

            The talk is sponsored by the Department of History, the Department of Philosophy and Religion, and the Institute for Religion, Politics & Culture and is free and open to the public.

            Schiffman, who serves as Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education at Yeshiva University, is a specialist in Judaism in Late Antiquity, the history of Jewish law, and Talmudic literature. He has published widely, including numerous scholarly articles on the history and significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the 1995 book Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls. His expertise has landed him in the PBS Nova documentary “Secrets of the Dead Sea Scrolls,” as well as in four BBC documentaries, the McNeil-Lehrer Report, and a Discovery special. He also consulted on the recent Franklin Institute exhibit, “Dead Sea Scrolls: Life and Faith in Ancient Times,” in Philadelphia.

             Schiffman is a fellow with the American Academy for Jewish Research, as well as a member of the Board of Directors of the Dead Sea Scrolls Foundation. His most recent books include The Courtyards of the House of the Lord:  Studies on the Temple Scroll (2008)  and Qumran and Jerusalem: Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the History of Judaism ( 2010). 

Lecturer Fatma Ismail Explores Foreign Influences on the Art of Ancient Egypt

CHESTERTOWN, MD—Visiting lecturer Fatma Ismail will talk about how ancient Egyptian art affected the rest of the world and was, in turn, affected by other cultures when she presents “Continuity and Transformation: Late Period Egypt,” on Wednesday, April 18 at Washington College. Her talk will take place at 4:30 p.m. in Litrenta Lecture Hall, John S. Toll Science Center, on the College campus.

During the time period from about 712 to 332 B.C., Egyptian artistic influences, Egyptian gods and their sanctuaries were widely attested to over the whole range of the Mediterranean world. Through a succession of conquests by Kushites, Assyrians, Persians, and Greeks, the Egyptians and their art were, in turn, changed by close contact with foreign cultures. Examining this rich period of ancient Egyptian history, Ismail will illustrate how Egyptian art exhibited both unique qualities and evidence of cross-cultural influences.

Ismail received her Ph.D. from the Near Eastern Department of the Johns Hopkins University in 2009 after completing her undergraduate studies and a preliminary master’s degree in Egyptology at Helwan University in Egypt. She shares her broad knowledge of the ancient Eastern Mediterranean world up to medieval Islam as a visiting lecturer in Art and Art History at Washington College. She curated the exhibition “For Now and Forever: Funerary Artifacts from Ancient Egypt” in the Kohl Gallery last fall.

The April 18 lecture is free and open to the public. It is sponsored by the William James Forum, the Department of Art and Art History, and the Department of Philosophy and Religion. For more information, visit http://art.washcoll.edu/.

Son of "The Immortal Henrietta Lacks" To Speak Feb. 21 at Washington College

CHESTERTOWN, MD—David “Sonny” Lacks, whose mother is the subject of Rebecca Skloot’s best-selling book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, will visit Washington College Tuesday, February 21 to talk about his family’s reaction to learning that their late mother’s cells were being sold in the billions for use in laboratories around the world. The event, a moderated discussion with the audience, will take place at 5 p.m. in Decker Theatre, Gibson Center for the Arts, with a reception to follow in the Underwood Lobby.

Sponsored by the College’s Office of Multicultural Affairs, William James Forum, Black Studies Program, and Department of Philosophy, the event is free and open to the public.

Henrietta Lacks was a poor African-American tobacco farmer and mother of five whose cells, harvested without her knowledge in 1951, the year she died of cervical cancer, became the first immortal human cells to be grown in a laboratory. Nicknamed HeLa cells, they became an important tool for modern medicine and remain the most widely used cell line in the world today.

Sonny Lacks and his siblings first learned of the cells in the 1970s when researchers wanted to conduct tests on them to learn more about the HeLa line. It has been a point of controversy that, although biotech companies have profited from sales of the HeLa cells, the family has never been financially compensated.

The story was catapulted into the national conscience when author Skloot published her book in 2010. In lectures to university and library audiences throughout the country, Sonny Lacks now celebrates his mother’s legacy and offers a personal perspective on the collision of medicine, race, ethics and business represented by her story.

Judaic Scholar from Princeton Offers Talk On "Jewish Approaches to Islam" February 9

CHESTERTOWN, MD—Princeton University scholar Elisha Russ-Fishbane will lecture on “Jewish Approaches to Islam: Historical and Modern Reflections” on Thursday, February 9, at Washington College. The talk is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. in Hynson Lounge, Hodson Hall, on the College campus, 300 Washington Avenue.

A historian of Jewish life and culture of the medieval Islamic world, Dr. Russ-Fishbane focuses on the socio-economic, religious, and intellectual intersections of medieval Judaism and Islam. He completed his doctorate in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University before joining Princeton as a Fellow in the Tikvah Project on Jewish Thought. He also has studied Classics at the University of Chicago, Yiddish at Oxford University, and Latin at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.

His talk is free and open to the public. Sponsors include the William James Forum, the Department of Philosophy and Religion, and the Institute for Religion, Politics and Culture at Washington College. For more information about the Institute and its programs, visit http://irpc.washcoll.edu/.

Marx Meets Buddha as WC Philosophy Professor Explores the Spiritual Dimensions of Humanistic Socialism

Chestertown, MD, June 28, 2006 — Karl Marx's materialistic philosophy of history might seem to exclude all possibilities of a spiritual dimension to human existence. But, according to Marx scholar Kevin Brien, chair and professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Washington College, the core of humanistic Marxism contains a latent spiritual view of human existence. In the second edition of his book Marx, Reason, and the Art of Freedom (Prometheus/Humanity Books, 2006), Brien analyzes not only the concept of freedom as developed throughout the philosophical works of Marx but also the convergence of humanistic Marxism and Buddhism through their nontheistic view of human flourishing.

In his analysis of the problem of freedom from a humanistic-Marxist perspective, Brien draws on the full chronological spectrum of Marx's writings to reconstruct the mature Marx's view of freedom. While recognizing that many students of Marx have noted two distinctly different perspectives in early and late Marx, Brien interprets Marx's philosophy as a coherent organic whole, demonstrating that Marx's thought is principally and systematically an elaborated philosophical-scientific theory of freedom.

"In 1987 I published the first edition of this book because of my belief that Marx's scientific/philosophical paradigm, when seen in the appropriate way, stands as the most viable currently available perspective for understanding human cultural evolution; and also because of my belief that Marx's paradigm, when properly understood, provides extremely fruitful guidance for nurturing a development toward a new plateau of human culture and of human freedom," Brien writes. "In undertaking to publish this second edition after the break up of the Soviet Union, and now well into the twenty-first century, these beliefs still function as my basic motivation."

New to this second edition is Brien's presentation of a humanistic-Marxist interpretation of spirituality and the viability of a nontheistic spiritual dimension, a "liberation spirituality" that provides a moral ground for common social action among adherents of different beliefs.

"It is my deep belief that a nondogmatic, nonsectarian, this-world oriented attitude concerning the spiritual dimension holds great promise for building such transcending holistic coalitions that could nurture developments toward a new plateau of cultural evolution—while acknowledging and even cultivating diversity," Brien says.

Brien received his Ph.D. from Boston University in 1978 and has taught in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Washington College since 1986. His areas of specialization and interest include Eastern philosophy and religion, philosophy of science, Marx, Nietzsche, and the history of philosophy. He is currently working on a new book tentatively called Toward a New Liberation Spirituality, aiming a critical synthesis of Marx, Nietzsche, and Buddhism.

Philosopher Sheds Light on the Postmodern Ego, November 3

Chestertown, MD, October 26, 2005 — Washington College's Department of English, Department of Philosophy, and Philosophy Club, with help from the Sophie Kerr Commitee, present "The State of the Postmodern Ego," a lecture by Dr. John Hurley, Thursday, November 3, at 4:30 p.m. at the Rose O'Neill Literary House. The event is free, and the public is invited to attend.

A professor of philosophy at the University of Hartford, Hurley will discuss the four well-known themes in the postmodern movement—its interdisciplinary structure, its dearth of grand narratives, the absence of a logocentric deus ex machina, and the virtual status of the human body—as they relate to literary criticism. He will also relay his belief that the underlying state of the postmodern ego embraces the full implication of the cogito in all of its forms.

Hurley is the author of two philosophy-focused novels, Diary of the Attending Rays (Potes & Poets Press, 1999) and Those Brownsville Blues (Potes & Poets Press, 2001).

The talk is sponsored by the Sophie Kerr Committee, which works to carry on the legacy of the late Sophie Kerr, a writer from Denton, Md., whose generosity has done so much to enrich Washington College's literary culture. When she died in 1965, Kerr left the bulk of her estate to the College, specifying that one half of the income from her bequest be awarded every year to the senior showing the most "ability and promise for future fulfillment in the field of literary endeavor" and the other half be used to bring visiting writers to campus, to fund scholarships, and to help defray the costs of student publications.

Philosopher to Explore Freedom Versus Occasionalism, September 8

Chestertown, MD, August 31, 2005 — Washington College's Department of Philosophy and Philosophy Club present "Is Freedom an Exception to Malebranche's Occasionalism?," a lecture by Sean Greenberg, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Johns Hopkins University, Thursday, September 8, at 4 p.m. in the Common Room of the Casey Academic Center.

Greenberg, a specialist in early modern philosophy with a strong interest in moral psychology, will discuss Nicolas Malebranche-a leading Classical Modern philosopher of the seventeenth century who developed the theory of occasionalism-in light of contemporary problems of the human will. After earning his Ph.D. from Harvard, Greenberg is currently researching early modern concepts of emotions and the will.

The event is free and open to the public.

Philosophy Lecture To Address Psychologism In Logic, Oct. 1

Chestertown, MD, September 21, 2004 — Washington College's Department of Philosophy and Religion and Philosophy Club will host a lecture by Dr. Sanford Shieh of Wesleyan University addressing “Psychologism in Logic,” Friday, October 1, at 4:00 p.m. in the Sophie Kerr Room, Miller Library. The event is free and open to the public.

Dr. Shieh is an assistant professor of philosophy at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT, and holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University and bachelor's degrees from Cornell and Oxford. He is widely published in the field of logic and contemporary philosophy and is currently working on a book titled Modality and Logic in Early Analytic Philosophy. Dr. Shieh's research interests include the question of the compatibility of the notion of intuition and logicism in the epistemology of mathematics and the conceptual history of the notion of necessity in early analytic philosophy.

Canadian Drug Importation And Prescription Affordability Topic Of Medical Ethics Forum, September 10

Chestertown, MD, September 1, 2004 — “Drug Wars: The Battle for Affordable Prescription Medications” is the topic of the Community Healthcare Ethics Committee (CHEC) fall forum and dinner on Friday, September 10, at Washington College. The annual forum for CHEC members and the community at-large is co-sponsored by Chester River Health System and the Philosophy and Religion Department of Washington College.

The forum will focus on the issue of prescription drug importation from Canada into the United States, and will be led by David Newell, Ph.D., a medical ethicist and professor at Washington College, and Patrick Shanahan, M.D., family practitioner. U.S. Representative Wayne Gilchrest, (R-Md.), Donna DeLeno, a representative from the AARP, and Lori Reilly, a representative from the pharmaceutical industry, will also serve as members of the ethics forum panel.

“This is a pertinent ethics issue within our community and therefore we feel it should be addressed by CHEC,” noted Linda J. Hickman, Ph.D., R.N., vice president of patient care services and CHEC event chair. “Our panel members, led by Dr. Newell and Dr. Shanahan, will bring new insight to the subject of Canadian drug importation.”

An optional reception and dinner will begin at 5:30 p.m. Tickets to the dinner are $25.00. The free public forum commences at 7:30 p.m. in the Norman James Theatre.

CHEC was formed in January 2003 with the purpose of providing an educational forum for staff, volunteers, families and residents of its member organizations; reviewing and developing recommendations for resolving ethically problematic cases; and offering ethical advice and recommendations on organizational policies and procedures. Members include Chester River Hospital Center, Chester River Home Care & Hospice, Chester River Manor, Chestertown Nursing & Rehabilitation and Heron Point.

For more information about CHEC's annual fall forum call Leslie Stack at 410-778-7668, extension 4061.

Author Richard Ben Cramer to Speak at Convocation

Chestertown, MD, February 16, 2001 — Washington College will honor Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Ben Cramer at the annual George Washington's Birthday Convocation on Saturday, February 17, 2001 at 2:00 p.m. in the College's Gibson Performing Arts Center, Tawes Theatre. Cramer will receive an honorary Doctor of Letters from the College.

Author of the recent best-selling biography Joe Dimaggio: The Hero's Life (Simon & Schuster, 2000), Cramer is a dogged journalist whose writing is as incisive as it is empathetic. Born in Rochester, NY, he studied journalism at Johns Hopkins and Columbia University before taking his first job with the (Baltimore) Sun in 1971. In 1976, Cramer went to work for The Philadelphia Inquirer, becoming an overseas correspondent and earning the Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the Middle East and Arab-Israeli conflict. Since 1984, Cramer has worked as a freelance writer and researcher probing America's cultural icons and political life. His 1992 bestseller, What It Takes: The Way to the White House, has been hailed by critics as the best book ever written on American politics.

The George Washington's Birthday Convocation is held annually in February to honor Washington College's founding patron. This year's event will open with an invocation and benediction by Dr. Gary Schiff, an avocational Hebrew cantor and lecturer in the College's Department of Philosophy and Religion. The ceremony also will honor students inducted into the Omicron Delta Kappa national honor society. A reception and book signing will be held in the Tawes Gallery immediately following the Convocation. The event is free and open to the public. For further information call 410-778-7849.