Ethics of Space / Power of Place
January 28, 2009
RJ Fellows are invited to attend one of two planning lunches to help the Center for Ethics brainstorm programming ideas for next year’s series Ethics of Space / Power of Place programming series (see below for the description).
We’ll meet on Tues, Feb 3 and Wed, Feb 4 in Seegers 109 from noon till
maybe 1:30. A buffet lunch w/ a vegetarian option will be served.
Please feel free to come and go as your schedule permits. If you absolutely know you can make it, please drop me an email at ridner@muhlenberg.edu or call me at x3326. If you’re not sure, please try to come anyway–no reply is necessary.
We really hope to see you there. We’d very much like to get ideas from students about the kinds of programming they would like to see as part of this exciting series.
Many thanks. Judy Ridner, Department of History, Director of the Center for Ethics
Series Description:
Ethics of Space / Power of Place
Space. We know it when we see it-or so we think. There are the
physical spaces we inhabit, like our homes, dorm rooms, classrooms,
workplaces, sidewalks and streets. We experience them everyday. But
how often do we acknowledge these spaces as bounded entities shaped by
the constraints of culture and race, class and gender, economics and
politics, ideology and style? And how often do we recognize them as
components of the real and metaphoric local, state, national, and
global communities that surround them? Then, too, we also talk of
outerspace,cyberspace, and virtual space. These common terms denoting the
unbounded, even limitless, distances in-between bodies express the
abstract nature of space, while hinting at the scientific and
technological tools used to measure or create them. Space, in short,
is a complex concept that raises myriad ethical questions. What is space?
How do we measure it? What boundaries delineate it? Who or what
regulates it and who has access to it? How is it contested? This
year-long programming series will foreground Muhlenberg College as an
experimental space through which students, faculty, staff, and
community members will engage these questions.
