CELEBRATING A CENTURY OF ADVANCEMENT THROUGH SELF-KNOWLEDGE
THE NEW YORK PSYCHOANALYTIC SOCIETY & INSTITUTE:
The Helix Center for Interdisciplinary Investigation
247 East 82nd St., between 2nd & 3rd, NY, NY, 10028
212-879-6900
www.psychoanalysis.org
Saturday, May 19, 2012, 2:30 – 4:30 PM, Donations accepted
The Alpha & the Omega: Beginning & Ending
THE DIALECTIC SERIES:THE ALPHA AND THE OMEGA, PART II: Where Does It End?
The end of a melody is not its goal: but nonetheless, had the melody not reached its end it would not have reached its goal either. A parable.
– Friedrich Nietzsche, The Wanderer and His Shadow
Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end…
– William Shakespeare, Sonnet 60
Everything has to come to an end, sometime.
– L. Frank Baum, The Marvelous Land of Oz
We follow up our inquiry into beginnings by posing complementary questions about endings: why are we curious about endings, whether that of the cosmos or our own? What can we discover from each other’s curiosity about endings? What are the organizational properties necessary to call something an ending? How might conceptualizations of the end of consciousness, life, civilization, and the universe at large inform one another?
The participants in this roundtable include James Berger, William Koblener, Paul Steinhardt, and Tyler Volk.
(If you missed Part I: Where Does It Begin? or wish to see it again, go to: www.thehelixcenter.org and click on the “Archive” link.)
James Berger is Senior Lecturer in American Studies and English at Yale University. He received his B.A. from Columbia University, his M.A. from Teachers College, Columbia University, and his Ph.D. from the University of Virginia. His interests include twentieth- and twenty-first-century American literature, literary theory, disability studies, neuroscience and literature, and apocalyptic literature and film, the latter including apocalypticism and the notion of the “post-apocalyptic” in exploring the limits of language, the relations between language and non-language, the status of discursive objects imagined as somehow-whether through global catastrophe, personal impairment, or religious or ethical imperative-outside the bounds of discourse. Dr. Berger is the author of multiple scholarly articles, and his books include After the End: Representations of Post-Apocalypse.
William Kolbrener is Associate Professor of English at Bar-Ilan University. He received his B.A. from Columbia College, his M.A. from University College, Oxford, and his Ph.D. from Columbia University. He has written in major scholarly journals in literature, history, theology, psychoanalysis, and cultural criticism, on Jewish topics in Commentary, Azure, JQR, the AJS Review, Tradition and many other Jewish publications, and the Washington Post column “Letter from Israel.” Professor Kolbrener is also author of the 2008 book, Milton’s Warring Angels: A study of Critical Engagements and the 2011, Open Minded Torah: Of Irony, Fundamentalism and Love.
Paul J. Steinhardt is the Albert Einstein Professor in Science and Director of the Princeton Center for Theoretical Science at Princeton University, where he is also on the faculty of both the Department of Physics and the Department of Astrophysical Sciences. He received his B.S. in Physics from Caltech, and his M.A. and Ph.D., both in Physics, from Harvard University. The author of over 200 refereed articles, five patents, three technical books, numerous popular articles, and the co-author of the 2007 Endless Universe: The Big Bang and Beyond, a popular book on contemporary theories of cosmology, Professor Steinhardt’s research spans problems in particle physics, astrophysics, cosmology and condensed matter physics. With Neil Turok (Cambridge U.), he proposed the “cyclic model,” a radical alternative to big bang/inflationary cosmology in which the evolution of the universe is periodic and the key events shaping the large scale structure of the universe occur before the big bang.
Tyler Volk is Professor of Biology, Environmental Studies and Science Director of Environmental Studies, New York University. He received his B.S. in Architecture from the University of Michigan, and his M.S. and Ph.D., both in Applied Science, from New York University. Author of multiple papers and books, including: Metapatterns Across Space, Time, and Mind; Death & Sex (with co-author Dorion Sagan); and What is Death?: A Scientist Looks at the Cycle of Life. Professor Volk is an active proponent of the Gaia hypothesis. His work examines the present and future of humans in a global environment, the cycling of materials by living systems, and the coupling of biological models to physical and chemical processes. He also investigates transdisciplinary principles of form and function, and the intertwining of death and life on multiple scales, from bacteria to personal psychology.
Information Regarding CME Credit for Physicians
This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the Essential Areas and policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education through the joint sponsorship of the American Psychoanalytic Association and the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. The American Psychoanalytic Association is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians.
The American Psychoanalytic Association designates this Live Activity for a maximum of [2] AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.
IMPORTANT DISCLOSURE INFORMATION FOR ALL LEARNERS: None of the planners and presenters of this CME program have any relevant financial relationships to disclose.
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