Humanities people
July 19, 2001
The most intriguing thing about Kim's summer seminar, for me at least, is the incredible preponderance of humanities-oriented people, as opposed to techies. Let me clarify- I mean extraordinarily well educated humanities-oriented people. Just today, Kim's seminar brought in two guest speakers.
The first one was named Father Vitaly. He is currently a prof. in philosphy at St. Louis University. He spoke to us about the recent Spielberg movie, "A.I." as well as the Robert Redford film, "A River Runs Through It." Apparently, they have some symbolic similarities. Fr. Vitaly sees ARRTI as a reply to AI's message that immortality is impossible, especially through the Christian or Judaic models. He also talked about Albert North Whitehead's systematic theology and how that applied. Very interesting, despite that I haven't seen either of the movies.
I missed the second guest's talk, but I was available for his Q&A following. He is an expert on Chaucer and Dante, and could speak extensively on any piece of their work. His sense of humor reminded me of Dr. Peters.
Just listening to these types of people reminds me how little I know of the humanities, and how interesting they can be. I'm very glad I took that Medieval History course my last semester at UF - I like to know I've had at least some exposure to university-level humanities, and it sure helps to understand the various engaging speakers that so often visit here.