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Poet Claudia Rankine, physicist Brian Greene, and neuroscientist and artist Bevil Conway will be the keynote speakers at this year’s Utah Science and Literature Symposium, to be held April 10-12 at the Eccles Alumni Association on campus. I am a lecturer.
Claudia Rankine is the author of “.Citizen: America Lyricsis a New York Times bestseller, and he has also written four books of poetry and three plays. She is the founder of the Institute for Racial Imagination, an NEA Fellow, past president of the Academy of American Poets, and a professor at New York University. Brian Greene is famous for his groundbreaking discoveries in string theory and is generally known for his books.elegant universe,””cosmic fabric,” and “hidden reality” spent 65 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and sold more than 2 million copies worldwide. He is a professor of physics and mathematics and director of the Center for Theoretical Physics at Columbia University. Bevil Conway is a senior research fellow at the National Eye Institute and the National Institute of Mental Health and an expert in the neuroscience of color. His work is held in the Boston Public Library, Fogg College Art Rental Collection, NIH Building 35 Public Art Collection, and many private collections.
The Utah Symposium will be held again this year after a long hiatus due to the coronavirus, and will feature university professors and graduate students from numerous departments and fields, from English to mathematics to music to philosophy. The theme of this year’s symposium is “Mere Beauty.” This is a topic that has arisen from the reexamination of beauty that is taking place not only in the arts and humanities, but also in biology, where dominant theories about the possible evolutionary purpose of beauty are being questioned.
Co-chairs Fred Adler, Professor of Biology and Mathematics, and Katherine Coles, Distinguished Professor of English, jointly developed the theme of the symposium. Coles explains: “The theme of beauty as a theme for interdisciplinary discussion and consideration seems very abstract in some ways. But I think this has become my favorite symposium theme so far. It seems to touch every aspect of our lives in every field and in many ways. Nature seems to have created us to respond to beauty. We can’t help but wonder why. yeah.”
As part of preparations for the symposium, Coles and Adler are co-teaching an undergraduate course on cosmetology this spring as a common subject in the English and mathematics departments. Like the symposium, this course aims to use the common theme of beauty as a way to resolve the perceived rift between the “two cultures” of science and literature. Adler speaks fondly of the “remarkable students” enrolled in the class and the satisfying challenge of its interdisciplinary approach. “Students in England face the trauma of trying to understand and find beauty in mathematics and physics. Mathematics students face the trauma of trying to understand and find beauty in mathematics and physics. And we all take on the collective challenge of reading philosophy to peer behind the curtain and ask what beauty is.” Coles says, “ Seeing math students overwhelmed by poetry and poets overwhelmed by the beauty of mathematics (and I am) is one of the great joys of my teaching career,” he added.
Both Adler and Coles hope the Utah Symposium will foster the same spirit of inquiry and interdisciplinary understanding that they have fostered in their courses. Rankin, Green and Conway have received some of the highest honors in their fields. This symposium provides a unique opportunity to bring them together here on the University of Utah campus for three days of his engaging discussions on the theme of beauty.
The Utah Symposium is free and open to the public. For more information, visit scienceandliterature.org.
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