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- <blockquote><blockquote><font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1"><a href="index.html"><b>INDEX</b></a><br><br><h3><font size="+0"><center><i>Reading Revolutions: Intellectual History</i></font></center></h3><br><center><font size="+1">Lecture Series</center></font>
- <font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1"><br>The following lectures were part of an event based on
- a collection of over 40 rare and first editions
- from the Remnant Trust focused on the writers who have had great impact
- on our ideas of science, government, and social standards. If you click on the title of a presentation you will reach either a paper written by the author or a paper written based on their talk by a student or myself.
- More photographs of the books and background information are available
- under the <a href="alphalist.html">Alphabetical List</a>.
- <br><br>
- <b>Origins of the Scientific Worldview:</b><br><br>
- <UL><a href="http://hua.umf.maine.edu/Reading_Revolutions/euclid.html">"Euclid's Elements and the Declaration of Independence"</a><UL> Michael Molinsky</UL></UL>
- <UL> <p>Euclid's Elements is one of the most influential works in history. It
- set a standard of formal logic, proof and reasoning that was emulated
- not only in mathematics but also in science, philosophy and even
- politics. This talk offered a brief summary of the Elements and
- offer one example of its influence by examining the Declaration of
- Independence.</p></UL><br>
- <UL> <a href="http://hua.umf.maine.edu/Reading_Revolutions/Galileo.html">"What We Have Here is a Failure to Communicate: Galileo and
- the Church"</a> <UL> Christopher Magri </UL></UL>
- <UL><p>Everyone knows that Galileo correctly divined how the planets move and
- that a tyrannical Church tried to crush him. Everyone is wrong. Why
- did his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, a book
- containing untruths and partial truths, set off a revolution in how to
- seek scientific truth? Is there in fact a conflict between science and
- faith? How did Galileo reach back to the past, to Pythagoras and
- Euclid, to set the stage for the future triumphs of Newton and Einstein?</p></UL><br>
- <UL><a href="http://hua.umf.maine.edu/Reading_Revolutions/Newton.html">"Newton: Planets, Apples, and Scientific Revolution"</a> <UL> Theo Kalikow </UL></UL>
- <UL><p>We all know the name of Sir Isaac Newton, but why? What was he doing
- under that apple tree? Why was his Mathematical Principles of Natural
- Philosophy a revolutionary text? What was the revolution about? Is the
- revolution still going on? Why does a book published in 1689 still
- matter today?</p></UL><br>
- <UL><a href="http://hua.umf.maine.edu/Reading_Revolutions/Hobbes.html">"Hobbesian Science"</a> <UL> Frank Underkuffler </UL></UL>
- <UL><p>Leviathan is well known for Hobbes's theory of the state, which was
- revolutionary is its substitution of the people in place of God as the
- ultimate source of political power. By banishing God from government,
- Hobbes accelerated the separation of state from church, with significant
- long-term consequences for Western governments. Perhaps more
- significantly, Hobbes was one of a handful of "enlighteners" who
- transformed the medieval world into the modern world. Science could not
- have become the full-blown ideological alternative to religion it became
- without Hobbes's contributions. Surprisingly, of the four pillars of
- so-called Newtonian science - modern empiricism, modern materialism, the
- scientific/causal theory of perception, and universal causal determinism
- - Hobbes, not Newton, invented three and a half. And without Hobbes,
- there could have been no Darwin. How could Hobbes be among the very
- greatest of scientists? </P></UL><br>
- <b>Reformation, Renaissance, Political Theory, Education, & Feminism:</b><br><br>
- <UL> <a href="http://hua.umf.maine.edu/Reading_Revolutions/MontaigneT.html">"Montaigne's Challenge: To Dare to Say All That One Dares to
- Do."</a> <UL> Gretchen Legler </UL></UL>
- <UL><p> Michele de Montaigne, a French nobleman of the 16th Century, is regarded
- by some as "the greatest essayist who ever lived." Others see him as the
- "father of the personal essay," the inventor of a way of writing about
- the self that, until his time, had never occurred. Why were his
- writings, especially his Essais, so influential and significant? What
- did they offer the common reader that he or she had never been offered
- before? What more contemporary writers did Montaigne influence and how?
- </p></UL><br>
- <UL><a href="http://hua.umf.maine.edu/Reading_Revolutions/Milton.html">"In Defense of Bad Books: Milton's Areopagitica"</a> <UL> Eric Brown </UL></UL>
- <UL><p>A critique of Milton's work on censorship, intellectual freedom, and the
- nature of books themselves.</p></UL><br>
- <UL><a href="http://hua.umf.maine.edu/Reading_Revolutions/Rousseau.html">"Jean-Jacques Rousseau - Father of the French Revolution" </a><UL>Grace Denison</UL></UL>
- <UL><p>Rousseau opens The Social Contract with the statement, "Man is
- born free, and yet we see him everywhere in chains." He then proceeds to
- explain how the problem of human loss of liberty can be remedied, namely by
- creating a society which exists in harmony and operates always according to
- the "general will." Robespierre found Rousseau's ideas sufficiently
- convincing to make them the foundation of the revolution's new government,
- thus ensuring that Rousseau would always be associated with the French
- Revolution and its ideals.
- </p></UL><br>
- <UL><a href="http://hua.umf.maine.edu/Reading_Revolutions/Wollstonecraft.html">"Mary Wollstonecraft: An 18th century thinker with revolutionary
- ideas for the 21st"</a> <UL>Denise DeVito</UL></UL>
- <UL><p>Wollstonecraft's pinnacle work, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
- (1792), was the first great feminist treatise. Wollstonecraft asserted
- that intellect and reason were the ways to obtain equality. Excessive
- concern for romantic love and physical desirability, she believed, were
- not natural but rather socially-imposed restrictions that kept women
- enslaved by male domination. Many contemporary feminist writers assert
- that Wollstonecraft's ideas are still revolutionary as equality between
- the sexes does not yet exist in the 21st century.</p></UL><br>
- <b>American Culture & Thought:</b><br><br>
- <UL><a href="http://hua.umf.maine.edu/Reading_Revolutions/wood.html">"American Enlightenment"</a> <UL> UMF Libra Scholar, Gordon S. Wood<br>Pulitzer Prize-winning American historian from Brown University
- <p>Gordon Wood talked about the process of developing the concept of America through its early history. </UL></UL>
- <br>
- <UL><a href="http://hua.umf.maine.edu/Reading_Revolutions/Tocqueville_Crevecoeur.html">"What is an American? Crevecoeur, Tocqueville, and the
- Ideology of American Exceptionalism"</a> <UL>Allen Berger </UL></UL>
- <UL><p>Crevecoeur and Tocqueville arguably initiated a trend in American
- studies focused on American uniqueness. They stressed characteristics
- such as egalitarianism and individualism. This presentation began with
- some of their ideas, traces them through subsequent writing and
- political discourse in the United States, and offers some thoughts
- regarding the contemporary role and impact of American Exceptionalism as
- an ideology. </p></UL><br>
- <ul> <a href="http://hua.umf.maine.edu/Reading_Revolutions/firstamendment.html">"Writing, Speaking, Going to Jail: A Reader's Theater of the First Amendment, with Discussion"</a> <UL>Franklin D. Roberts and Teresa Swartz Roberts</UL></UL> <ul><p>This presentation included the reading of the First Amendment directly from the Constitution of the United States and excerpts from
- various First Amendment-related writings (for example, some of the text
- from the Alien and Sedition Act, Miller v California, the USA PATRIOT
- Act, Lenny Bruce, Lady Chatterly's Lover, news reports on research
- stating that high school students think the First Amendment goes too
- far). The presentation was followed by a period of discussion with
- the audience about freedom of speech and of the press.</p></ul><br>
- <UL>"<a href="Emerson.html">Emerson's Optimism: You Can Be Everything You Need To Be</a>"<UL>George Miller</UL></UL>
- <UL><p>The three main themes of Emerson's philosophy - self-reliance, the
- inevitability of natural justice, and the unity of mind and nature -
- combine to form a highly optimistic view of the meaning of human life.
- When you are down in the dumps, or tired, or too caught up in the muddle
- of daily problems, if you open up his essays at random and just start
- reading, he often says exactly what you need to hear.</p><UL><br>
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- <td width="100%"><blockquote><font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1"><br>Reading Revolutions was jointly sponsored by the University of Maine at Farmington and the Remnant Trust. The lecture series was partially funded by the Maine Humanities Council with support
- from the National Endowment for the Humanities through its We the People
- program.
- <br><br>The Lecture Series was coordinated by Jonathan Cohen with help from Frank Roberts, Director of Mantor Library and coordinator of the Reading Revolutions project. During the semester, over
- 4000 people either attended lectures or visited Mantor Library to view the collection. Frank Roberts arranged for visits by schools throughout the State and visited schools and classrooms in the area to give talks on selected works.
- <p>The <a href="http://www.theremnanttrust.com/">Remnant Trust</a> is a foundation run by Brian and
- Kris Bex dedicated to education.
- </center><br>
- <br><br>URL: <a href="http://hua.umf.maine.edu/Reading_Revolutions/index.html">http://hua.umf.maine.edu/Reading_Revolutions/index.html</a> <br><br>Marilyn Shea, 2005, 2006<br><br>
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