Roundtable Discussions

Academic Year 2006-2007

After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, Alasdair MacIntyre.

Organisers: Martha Kelly, Connie Lau and Charis Quay.
Discussion facilitators: Various unsuspecting people.

'After Virtue' has taken its own place in the cultural vocabulary of many scholars, philosophers and thinking people. This is because MacIntyre probes Western philosophy and history to discern the reasons for what he diagnoses as current "intellectual disorder" --- Western culture's inability to agree and act upon basic premises of what life means and what constitutes morality.

For the most canonical (and brief) discussion of MacIntyre's work, see the entry in the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (available to subscribers including Stanford affiliates).

All are welcome regardless of faith or field of expertise.

Logistics

We will be meeting about once a month for an hour and a half and discuss two or three chapters of the book each time. The first meeting will be on the 9th of October. Please contact Martha Kelly (marthakelly) for further details.

9 October, 9:15am, Chapters 1-3.
7 November, 8am, Chapters 4-6.
5 December, 9am, Chapters 7-9.
12 January, 9:30am, Chapters 10-12.
9 April, 9am, Chapters 13-15.
8 May, 10am, Chapters 16-19.

Resources

• Can We Live the Good Life?, review article by J. M. Cameron in the New York Review of Books.
• The Achievement of Alasdair MacIntyre, article by Edward T. Oakes in First Things.
  
• Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues and The MacIntyre Reader, review article by Gilbert Meilaender in First Things.
  
• Living Faithfully in a Fragmented World: Lessons for the Church from Macintyre's After Virtue, book by Jonathan R. Wilson. (Recommended by Todd Murphy.)
• Veritatis Splendor (The Splendour of Truth), encyclical by John Paul II. (Recommended by Charis Quay.)

Academic Year 2006-2007

His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman; in comparison with C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia.

Discussion facilitators: Julie Won and Charis Quay.

Do you miss reading fun books that engage your imagination? Alternately, do you ever ponder the meaning or role of the Church and organized religion, the omnipotence of God, or where you fit in the scheme of the universe?

This coming academic year, we will be engaging in an informal discussion of Pullman's His Dark Materials (HDM). We stress the term, 'informal'. We will discuss one book of the trilogy per quarter, giving all interested individuals ample time to read the book. In general, each book could be read in one sitting if you have a chunk of time since you probably won't want to put the book down. We anticipate no more than one or two meetings per quarter (we promise nothing else in your schedule is as low-maintenance as this).

For those who don't need convincing and don't like the PR bit anyway: The trilogy is engrossing. Read it, come to the roundtable discussion, be stimulated, and eat some food.

For those who need more baiting: This trilogy is a riveting tale of parallel worlds, the tyranny of the organized Church, human souls in the form of animal daemons, warring polar bears, guardian angels, renegade scientists, creatures that navigate on tripod wheels, the 'fun' side of dark matter, the omnipotence of God, human destiny, original sin, valiant gypsies, beautiful witches in battle, the mystic properties of the aurora borealis, scientific expeditions, Oxford scholars, the land of the dead, and a climatic battle between God and some manifestation of human triumph. The trilogy is sort of: John Milton meets J.K. Rowling. To cap it off, the trilogy is a super-fast read aimed at the reading level of middle school students (i.e., even graduate students can read this).

A bit of background: Philip Pullman, an Oxford scholar, is well-known in Britain for his general contempt for organized religion and C.S. Lewis's overt Christian allegory in the Chronicles of Narnia. The trilogy was dramatized for the National Theatre, London in 2004. A movie of the first book, The Golden Compass (directed by Chris Weitz), will be released next year in 2007. As a group, we will go and watch the movie when it comes out.

As this movie will likely get quite a bit of publicity given its religion/science themes and the general popularity of the books (certainly in the UK), we feel that a discussion of the trilogy~Rs broader themes is warranted. Where appropriate, we will compare themes in HDM with those in The Chronicles of Narnia.

The Logistics

Fall Quarter: Book 1: The Golden Compass
Winter Quarter: Book 2: The Subtle Knife
Spring Quarter: Book 3: The Amber Spyglass

When: The first meeting for the Fall Quarter discussion of The Golden Compass is scheduled for Thursday, November 2, 2006 from 7:30-9:30pm at Julie's apartment. Refreshments will be served. If necessary, a second discussion of The Golden Compass will be held on Thursday, November 30, 2006 from 7:30-9:30pm at Charis's apartment.

Please keep the above dates in mind if you are interested and put the trilogy on the top of your to-read queue. If you'd like to borrow a copy and save your stipend for academic texts, you can get a copy from Stanford libraries. We will send out reminders and greater detail as the quarter progresses. However, if you are fairly certain you would like to join, please shoot an e-mail to Julie Won (juljwon) so we can get a rough idea of who is interested. Also, this roundtable discussion will be advertised to all graduate students on campus, so if you know anyone who would be interested, please pass this along.

Resources

• An Almost Christian Fantasy, review article by Daniel P. Moloney in First Things.
• Alan Jacobs, author of 'The Narnian: the Life and Imagination of C. S. Lewis', interviewed on the trilogy for the Mars Hill Audio journal.
• Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in conversation with Philip Pullman after the perfomances at the National Theatre.
• The Guardian review, with some comparisons to Narnia.
• Dark Matter: Shedding Light on Philip Pullman's Trilogy His Dark Materials, book by Tony Watkins.