NASHVILLE, Tenn. – After Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast last year, some speculated that God was punishing New Orleans for its sins. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said it was payback for the war in Iraq.
Was it an act of nature, God or evil?
Susan Neiman, director of the Einstein Forum in Potsdam, Germany, will address such issues when she delivers Vanderbilt University’s 19th Berry Lecture at 6 p.m. April 10 in Room 103 of Wilson Hall (111 21st Ave. S.) on the Vanderbilt campus.
The topic is “Natural Evils? From Lisbon to New Orleans.” The lecture is free and open to the public.
Neiman, a native of Atlanta, studied philosophy at Harvard University and the Free University of Berlin. She was professor of philosophy at Yale University and Tel Aviv University before joining the Einstein Forum in 2000.
The Einstein Forum promotes the exchange of ideas across disciplinary and national borders, and presents lectures, workshops and conferences designed to give the general public the opportunity to engage with major thinkers at work.
Neiman’s books include Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy.
Neiman will discuss whether nature can be evil, using examples including Hurricane Katrina and a 1755 earthquake in Lisbon, Spain, that caused philosophers Rousseau and Voltaire to debate the issue.
The Berry Lecture series began in 1988 funded by John and Shirley Lachs with Alan Berry and Kendall Berry to show how philosophy can impact our lives. Neiman’s lecture is co-sponsored by the Department of Philosophy at Vanderbilt, the Center for the Study of Religion and Culture at Vanderbilt, the Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities at Vanderbilt and The Center for Ethics at Vanderbilt.
Media contact: Jim Patterson, (615) 322-NEWS
jim.patterson@vanderbilt.edu