Conference Description

Empathy has recently emerged as a topic of critical importance. In the humanities and fine arts we hope to facilitate empathy by providing an imaginative reconstruction of our own or someone else's experience. In the social sciences and in popular political discourse we wonder how empathy can help us address differences of race, religion, and national culture. In the biological sciences we are eager to ground empathy in human nature. This cross-disciplinary conference brings together scholars, artists, and other community members to explore the questions: when these sometimes conflicting discourses all seem to be working on the same problem, how should we understand the larger cultural project? Why empathy? Why now? What dangers and what promise does empathy hold as we face the challenges of the 21st Century?

Featured Speakers:
Ida Beam Visiting Professors:
Cherríe Moraga and Frans B. M. de Waal
and
Temple Grandin
Bob Shacochis • Cameron McCarthy • Page duBois

All sessions are free and open to the public.

Click here to download detailed description.

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Sponsors

The conference is hosted by The Project On Rhetoric Of Inquiry and the Graduate College at The University of Iowa.

With the generous support of: