UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN River Falls

Events

Past Moosa Speaker Series Events


Click on each year below to view details.

Monday, April 25, 2022 - The inaugural event!

 

"Six or Seven Lessons I Have Drawn from My Long Walk with Soren Kierkegaard"

 

Gordon Marino, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Curator of The Hong Kierkegaard Library, St. Olaf College

Gordon Marino earned his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, M.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, and B.A. from Columbia University. His areas of specialization include History of Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion, and Kierkegaard. He teaches philosophy and related courses as a professor at St. Olaf College and holds a position as the curator of the Kierkegaard Library. 

n 2018, Marino published his most recent book, “The Existentialist’s Survival Guide.” He has authored and co-authored numerous works, including “Kierkegaard in the Present Age.” His articles have appeared in internationally acclaimed news sources and periodicals including Atlantic Monthly, New York Times Magazine, Wall Street Journal and the American Poetry Review. He is also a veteran boxing trainer and an award-winning boxing writer.

Having a speaker series is important to share wisdom, especially in a time when the humanities are being cut at many educational institutions,” Marino said. “I am sure the much-beloved Professor Moosa would agree that we need to show the ways in which the study of the humanities helps us become human.”

Moosa, who died in December 2020, was born in Africa and moved to Canada at age 16. He had a degenerative eye disease, which caused him to lose his eyesight in 2006.

In an interview for a university series titled Shaping Minds, Moosa talked about what he enjoyed about teaching:

“The highlight of my classes is when we are opening our souls, when we are talking about life in its rawness. When we are now philosophizing in a passionate way. It’s almost a Zen-like experience,” Moosa said. “When students really start talking and revealing and asking and probing and questioning and they take possession of the material and I become only accessory to the discussion. I’m not a professor anymore, I’m just part of the group. Those are the high points in the classroom.”

Monday, April 17, 2023
 
"Democracy Between Populism and Neoliberalism"

Adam Kotsko, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, Shimer Great Books School, North Central College, Naperville, Illinois

In recent years, Americans have heard repeatedly that democracy is under siege, from both major parties. One of the most puzzling aspects of this situation is the mismatch between the beliefs and actions of both sides. While Republicans use their baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen to justify sweeping changes to voting laws, Democrats have pursued very little legal or legislative action to shore up democratic norms even in the wake of the January 6 attack on the Capitol. To understand this strange dynamic, this talk will take a step back from the headlines and trace democracy's woes back to the neoliberal ideology that mainstream figures in both parties still share. This ideology claims to support individual freedom through market competition, but at the same time its leading theorists deeply distrusted democracy and sought to insulate the economy from political pressures. In fact, when push came to shove, they preferred a dictatorship that would preserve capitalism over a left-wing government that would preserve democracy. The result has been that none of the most important questions facing our society have been on the ballot for a generation or more—and where both major parties suspect that genuine democracy is more dangerous than the radical right.

 

Thursday, April 4, 2024
 
"Stuck on You: Ethics in the Age of Parasitism"

Lisa Heldke, Ph.D.

Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Nobel Conference at Gustavus Adolphus College, St. Peter, Minn. Publications include: Philosophers at Table: On Food and Being Human; Exotic Appetites: Ruminations of a Food Adventurer; and The Encyclopedia of Food and Agriculture Ethics. She is the co-creator of The John Dewy Kitchen Institute, a train-the-trainers program that invites educators of all sorts to use cooking and eating as tools for classroom inquiry. 

"Following current movements in biology, I advocate understanding human individuals as: (1) communities of organisms that are (2) chomping and being chomped upon by other living beings; and that (3) have agency--e.g., some ability to make choices about their next meal. If we individuals are actually communities of agents, how then should we understand what we are doing when we make ethical choices about what we will eat? The recognition that I am a bundle of organisms that possess (at least some degree of) agency also invites us to rethink what it means to take moral responsibility for dinner." -- Lisa Heldke

Go to current year's event

This fund was established in 2021 with a generous gift from the Moosa family as well as many individual campus and community members. The goal of the series is to feature leading experts and thought leaders on a variety of pressing philosophical, social justice, and contemporary ethical issues.

Remembering Dr. Moosa

The series was established in tribute to UW-River Falls philosophy professor Imtiaz Moosa, Ph.D., who taught at the university from 1989 until his unexpected passing in December 2020. The series fund will provide financial resources for an annual contemporary philosophy and ethics speaker series.

“Professor Moosa is dearly missed by our entire Falcon family,” said Dean Yohnk, dean of the College of the Arts and Sciences. “Imtiaz demonstrated a vibrant spirit, a love of teaching, a steadfast dedication to our students and a true zest for life. We believe this new series will be a meaningful and lasting tribute to a memorable educator and remarkable person.”

“Our campus community and the entire country needs rational, informed debate on important topics now more than ever,” explains Neil Kraus, chair of the History and Philosophy Department. “Our hope is that we can use the Dr. Imtiaz Moosa Philosophy and Ethics Speaker Series to address many of the most important issues we face, including the precarious state of democracy itself.”