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'Politics and Ethics of Intoxication' lecture series Feb. 23, March 22, April 19 at SUNY Potsdam

Posted 2/21/12

POTSDAM -- National Endowment for the Humanities Distinguished Visiting Professor Dr. Michael A. Rinella will offer three public talks about historic views on inebriation, with a series entitled "The …

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'Politics and Ethics of Intoxication' lecture series Feb. 23, March 22, April 19 at SUNY Potsdam

Posted

POTSDAM -- National Endowment for the Humanities Distinguished Visiting Professor Dr. Michael A. Rinella will offer three public talks about historic views on inebriation, with a series entitled "The Politics and Ethics of Intoxication: Ancient and Modern Perspectives" at SUNY Potsdam this spring.

All three lectures are on Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. in the Knowles Hall Lounge. All are free, and the public is invited.

The lectures cover:

• Feb. 23: "Wine, Scandal and Blasphemy: Socrates in Historical Context": In this multidisciplinary presentation, Rinella will examine the technology of ancient wine-making and the cultural function of the Greek dinner party or symposium, and how the latter interacted with the political life of ancient Athens.

• March 22: "Reason's Black Magic: 'The Problem of Socrates' in Nietzsche, Derrida and Foucault": In a wide-ranging discussion that incorporates both traditional philosophic themes with ancient views of medicine, magic and rhetoric, Rinella will examine the critique of Plato's Socrates, as put forward by Nietzsche in the late 19th century, and Derrida and Foucault a century later.

• April 19: "The Genealogy of Drug Ethics: From Plato to the Postmodern": Rinella will argue that today's approach to drug ethics, influenced by the Industrial Revolution on the one hand and the supplanting of a religious framework for ethics by a medico-scientific/juridical framework on the other, is increasingly obsolete and demands replacement.