One Day University Spring Full-Day Event in NYC: The Science of Pleasure & More
Join One Day University as we present our spring full-day event on May 7th. Spend a fascinating day with 4 award-winning professors. You’ll experience all four thought-provoking talks and countless engaging ideas—all in one day. And don’t worry, there are no tests, no grades and no homework. Just the pure joy of lifelong learning!
9:30 AM – 10:45 AM
Reinventing English: The Future of Reading, Writing and Thinking
Seth Lerer/University of California at San Diego
The English Language is changing at a faster rate than almost ever before. Not only are new words and new expressions entering popular expression; the language is becoming more evocative and idiomatic. Digital technologies have changed the way we write and read. Global media has helped make English into a world language—but a world language with many different social, regional, and cultural variations.
Should English be an official language; what standards to we use in public discourse; what happens when cultures come together and introduce new words; what role does technology have in language change? These are all questions that, in one form or another, have been asked for a thousand years — ever since the Anglo-Saxons first committed “English” into writing and created poetry and prose of power and imagination. English has always been Re-Invented by everyone who speaks and writes it. In this course, we will search for ways of anticipating future changes to the language and prepare for a world in which English will be Re-Invented before our eyes and ears.
11:00 AM – 12:15 PM
America’s Founders: What Were They Really Like?
Joanne Freeman/Yale University
They were ambitious. They were grouchy (especially John Adams). They were scared. They were hopeful. They told jokes (sometimes dirty ones.) They fought. They schemed. They gossiped. They slung a lot of mud. They occasionally killed each other (sorry, Alexander Hamilton.) They improvised. They made great big crashing mistakes. And above all, they were human. John Adams said so, more than once. Responding to an awestruck letter written to him in his old age, Adams replied: I ought not to object to your reverence for your fathers…. But to tell you a very great secret, as far as I am capable of comparing the merit of different periods, I have no reason to believe we were better than you are.
To Adams, as to many of his peers, one of the most important things to remember about America’s founding was that it was a human story. The Founders were real people with real weaknesses as well as strengths, engaged in an enormous political experiment that they hoped would have worldwide significance, but that seemed just as likely to collapse as to prevail. Only by seeing the Founders as human can we appreciate the full story of the nation’s founding with all of its drama, humor, and significance intact. This talk will explore what it felt like to be one of the nation’s founders, standing on the national stage, bringing an experimental government to life, and wondering what would happen next.
1:15 PM – 2:30 PM
The Science of Pleasure: Why We Like What We Like
Paul Bloom/Yale University
The question “What makes people happy?” has been around forever. But in the past few years,Yale Professor Bloom has developed a new approach to the science of pleasure — one that draws on recent work in psychology, philosophy, economics, and emerging fields such as neuroeconomics. His work has led to new ways to explore the emotional value of different experiences, and has produced some surprising insights about the conditions that result in satisfaction. Many researchers now believe, that each of us is a community of competing selves, with the happiness of one often causing the misery of another. This theory might explain certain puzzles of everyday life, such as why addictions and compulsions are so hard to shake off, and why we insist on spending so much of our lives in worlds – like TV shows and novels and virtual-reality experiences – that don’t actually exist. Professor Bloom will present a special in-depth seminar focusing on happiness, desire, memory, and more. He’s created the class especially for One Day U — I promise it will be an amazing peek into the human mind from one of the most popular and acclaimed professors at Yale University.
2:45 PM – 4:00 PM
The Politics of Islam: The Good, The Bad, The Future
Tarek Masoud/Harvard University
A brief survey of the fates of Muslim-majority countries during these opening decades of the twenty-first century reveals a world wracked by violence, economic underdevelopment, the systematic oppression of women, and a dearth of representative, accountable, democratic, decent government. It has thus become commonplace for scholars, policymakers, and concerned citizens to wonder whether Islam—the world’s second largest and fastest growing religion—is somehow implicated in the political and economic dysfunctions of the countries where it is practiced. In this session, we will explore the evidence, ranging widely over the work of historians, economists, anthropologists, and sociologists to emerge with a more nuanced picture of the past, present, and future of the Muslim world and of the West’s encounter with it.
When: Sat., May. 7, 2016 at 9:30 am - 4:00 pm
Where: Symphony Space
2537 Broadway
212-864-1414
Price: $179
Buy tickets/get more info now
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Join One Day University as we present our spring full-day event on May 7th. Spend a fascinating day with 4 award-winning professors. You’ll experience all four thought-provoking talks and countless engaging ideas—all in one day. And don’t worry, there are no tests, no grades and no homework. Just the pure joy of lifelong learning!
9:30 AM – 10:45 AM
Reinventing English: The Future of Reading, Writing and Thinking
Seth Lerer/University of California at San Diego
The English Language is changing at a faster rate than almost ever before. Not only are new words and new expressions entering popular expression; the language is becoming more evocative and idiomatic. Digital technologies have changed the way we write and read. Global media has helped make English into a world language—but a world language with many different social, regional, and cultural variations.
Should English be an official language; what standards to we use in public discourse; what happens when cultures come together and introduce new words; what role does technology have in language change? These are all questions that, in one form or another, have been asked for a thousand years — ever since the Anglo-Saxons first committed “English” into writing and created poetry and prose of power and imagination. English has always been Re-Invented by everyone who speaks and writes it. In this course, we will search for ways of anticipating future changes to the language and prepare for a world in which English will be Re-Invented before our eyes and ears.
11:00 AM – 12:15 PM
America’s Founders: What Were They Really Like?
Joanne Freeman/Yale University
They were ambitious. They were grouchy (especially John Adams). They were scared. They were hopeful. They told jokes (sometimes dirty ones.) They fought. They schemed. They gossiped. They slung a lot of mud. They occasionally killed each other (sorry, Alexander Hamilton.) They improvised. They made great big crashing mistakes. And above all, they were human. John Adams said so, more than once. Responding to an awestruck letter written to him in his old age, Adams replied: I ought not to object to your reverence for your fathers…. But to tell you a very great secret, as far as I am capable of comparing the merit of different periods, I have no reason to believe we were better than you are.
To Adams, as to many of his peers, one of the most important things to remember about America’s founding was that it was a human story. The Founders were real people with real weaknesses as well as strengths, engaged in an enormous political experiment that they hoped would have worldwide significance, but that seemed just as likely to collapse as to prevail. Only by seeing the Founders as human can we appreciate the full story of the nation’s founding with all of its drama, humor, and significance intact. This talk will explore what it felt like to be one of the nation’s founders, standing on the national stage, bringing an experimental government to life, and wondering what would happen next.
1:15 PM – 2:30 PM
The Science of Pleasure: Why We Like What We Like
Paul Bloom/Yale University
The question “What makes people happy?” has been around forever. But in the past few years,Yale Professor Bloom has developed a new approach to the science of pleasure — one that draws on recent work in psychology, philosophy, economics, and emerging fields such as neuroeconomics. His work has led to new ways to explore the emotional value of different experiences, and has produced some surprising insights about the conditions that result in satisfaction. Many researchers now believe, that each of us is a community of competing selves, with the happiness of one often causing the misery of another. This theory might explain certain puzzles of everyday life, such as why addictions and compulsions are so hard to shake off, and why we insist on spending so much of our lives in worlds – like TV shows and novels and virtual-reality experiences – that don’t actually exist. Professor Bloom will present a special in-depth seminar focusing on happiness, desire, memory, and more. He’s created the class especially for One Day U — I promise it will be an amazing peek into the human mind from one of the most popular and acclaimed professors at Yale University.
2:45 PM – 4:00 PM
The Politics of Islam: The Good, The Bad, The Future
Tarek Masoud/Harvard University
A brief survey of the fates of Muslim-majority countries during these opening decades of the twenty-first century reveals a world wracked by violence, economic underdevelopment, the systematic oppression of women, and a dearth of representative, accountable, democratic, decent government. It has thus become commonplace for scholars, policymakers, and concerned citizens to wonder whether Islam—the world’s second largest and fastest growing religion—is somehow implicated in the political and economic dysfunctions of the countries where it is practiced. In this session, we will explore the evidence, ranging widely over the work of historians, economists, anthropologists, and sociologists to emerge with a more nuanced picture of the past, present, and future of the Muslim world and of the West’s encounter with it.
Buy tickets/get more info now
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