'Knowledge and belief' to be explored
Humanities Center to host two-day conference that celebrates 25th anniversary; nearly 500 fellows invited for reunion
For its biggest conference ever—featuring more than 45 speakers—the Stanford Humanities Center has chosen a big topic: "Knowledge and Belief." The conference, to be held Friday and Saturday at the center, will celebrate its 25th anniversary and be a reunion for its fellows. Almost 500 fellows—faculty from Stanford and other institutions, and graduate students—have been in residence at the center since it was established in 1980 to promote interdisciplinary humanities research and education.
Questions about the boundaries between belief and knowledge have been central to scholars at least since the Renaissance and currently are the subject of very intense debate, said John Bender, the center's director and a former fellow. And the topic is very comprehensive, he added. "It's hard to think of any of the humanities that don't fit in."
More than 125 fellows are expected to attend the conference, Bender said. Conference speakers all are current and former fellows and include several Stanford faculty members.
The conference will begin with a plenary panel with Marjorie Garber, director of the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University; Wanda Corn, professor of art and art history at Stanford; Takashi Fujitani, professor of history and Japanese studies at the University of California-San Diego; and Brad Gregory, professor of history at the University of Notre Dame.
Other well-known scholars and former fellows who will participate as panelists are philosopher Richard Rorty, professor emeritus of comparative literature at Stanford; Hilary Schor, professor of English, comparative literature and gender studies at the University of Southern California; Daniel Herwitz, professor of humanities and director of the Institute for the Humanities at the University of Michigan; and Mary Louise Gill, professor of philosophy and classics at Brown University.
Panel titles include "Knowledge in Language," "The Arts and Belief," "Genealogy of Knowledge and Belief," "Gender, Power and Belief" and "Belief Outside Religion." (A full conference schedule is available at the Humanities Center website at http://shc.stanford.edu.)
Organizers expect that the conference will draw attention to the role the center has played in supporting research not just at Stanford but around the world, and will highlight its growth, a center press release said. The conference also will give fellows a chance to reconnect, Bender said. Many former fellows describe time spent at the center as the most magical of their lives, he said.
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