‘Scourge’ kicks off humanities lectures

Described in The New Yorker as “a scourge of Western civilization as we know it,” literary theorist, legal scholar and political pundit Stanley Fish opens this season’s Humanities Without Boundaries lecture series.

His free public talk, “Holocaust Denial and Academic Freedom,” will be presented at 7:30 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 13, at 1100 Grainger Hall, 975 University Ave.

Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Fish is known not only for his writings about the role of the reader in literature but also for his controversial views on a variety political and social issues.

In the world of academia, his book, “Surprised by Sin: The Reader in Paradise Lost,” published in 1967, is considered a landmark of Milton scholarship. His most recent book, “How Milton Works,” explores the radical effect of Milton’s religious beliefs on his poetry and prose.

Fish is also famous for rankling fellow academics at both ends of the political spectrum, believing that cherished notions of intellectual and religious liberty are artifacts of partisan politics. He is the author of the essay, “There Is No Such Thing as Free Speech, and It’s a Good Thing, Too,” and the recent book, “The Trouble with Principle,” which raises questions about academic freedom and hate speech, affirmative action and multiculturalism and the boundaries between church and state.

In addition to Fish’s lecture, the Center for the Humanities is featuring five other prominent speakers in its free public lecture series:

• A renowned scholar of the West, Patricia Limerick, will give the lecture “Humanities Without Restraint: Using History to Calm Down the American West” at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 25, in the On Wisconsin Room of the Red Gym, 716 Langdon St.
• Art historian Wen Fong will present “Chinese Calligraphy: The Embodied Image” at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 15, in L160 Elvehjem Museum of Art, 800 University Ave.
• Steven Pinker, a leading authority on language and the mind, will give the talk “The Blank Slate” on why the concept of human nature has been so politically and morally incendiary, at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 5, at 1100 Grainger Hall, 975 University Ave.
• Philosopher and scholar in African-American studies Kwame Anthony Appiah will discuss “Race, Gender and Individuality” at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 4, in Great Hall of the Memorial Union, 800 Langdon St.
• In “The Body in Philosophy, Art and Life,” art critic Arthur Danto will explore current controversies on how the human body is represented in Western art at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, May 2, in L160 Elvehjem Museum of Art.

For more information: (608) 263-3409, info@humanities.wisc.edu.
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