Yale Bulletin and Calendar

March 19, 2004|Volume 32, Number 22

Castle Lectures to explore
materialism in today's culture

"A New Materialism" is the theme of this year's Castle Lectures series, being presented Tuesday-Thursday, March 23-25, by the Program in Ethics, Politics and Economics.

The featured speaker -- Richard Sennett, professor of sociology at the London School of Economics and University Professor of the Humanities at New York University -- will reflect on the production of culture in modern society. He will examine why, in a "developed world" awash with material objects, people are not very skilled at understanding what these objects reveal about themselves or one another.

Sennett will present three lectures: "Making" on March 23; "Building" on March 24; and "Ruling" on March 25. Each will be presented 4-5:30 p.m. in Rosenfeld Hall, 109 Grove St.; and each will be followed by a reception. All are free and open to the public.

In his youth, Sennett trained to be a musician, but an injury prematurely ended his musical career, and he went on to study at the University of Chicago and Harvard University. In his many scholarly writings, Sennett has touched upon the topics of urban family patterns, the work careers of city-dwellers, class relations in the city, the urban welfare system, and the relation of those social experiences to architecture, urban design and planning. Some of his best-known titles include "The Uses of Disorder," "The Hidden Injuries of Class," "The Fall of Public Man," "The Conscience of the Eye," "Flesh and Stone," "The Corrosion of Character" and "Respect."

Sennett's honors include the Amalfi Prize for European Sociology, the Friedrich Ebert Award for Sociology and the Berlin Prize for Sociology. He was chair of the United Nations Development Program's International Committee on Urban Studies 1989-1993 and the American Council on Work 1996-2001. He currently chairs the Cities Program at the London School of Economics.

The Castle Lectures seek to promote an awareness of and sensitivity to ethical issues facing individuals in modern American society. They were endowed by John K. Castle to honor one of his ancestors, the Reverend James Pierpont, one of Yale's original founders. The Castle Lectures are published in book form by the Yale University Press.

For more information, contact David Leslie at david.leslie@yale.edu.

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Castle Lectures to explore materialism in today's culture

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In Focus: Office of Cooperative Research