Tuesday, March 15 
5 – 6 p.m.
Ahmanson Auditorium
(UHall 1000)

Lita Albuquerque: Art, Knowledge, Spirit

Lita Albuquerque was raised in Paris and Tunisia and lives in Malibu, California. She has worked internationally for many years. Her work ranges from intimate objects to large scale installations, in many instances dealing with astronomical phenomena and land formations.

Lita Albuquerque creates paintings and sculptures which are linked with the California Light and Space movement. In her work she seeks a place where we are no longer isolated beings but members of a global community profoundly connected to the natural universe. Her philosophical perspective is cosmological and her roots are in the Islamic culture she comes from. 

Visit Lita's website

Wednesday, March 16
4 – 7 p.m.
Ahmanson Auditorium
(UHall 1000)

Beyond Belief: Wondrous Spaces

4 – 5 p.m. Richard Doyle, Presentation TBA

Richard Doyle, Professor of English at Penn State, is interested in the rhetorics and practices surrounding “life.”  His books include On Beyond Living and Wetwares: Experiments in Post Vital Living; his current projects include LSDNA and Darwin's Pharmacy: The Evolution of Psychedelics and Mind.
See Rich's website.

5 - 6 p.m.  Margaret Wertheim, Hands-On Work with Hyberbolic Geometries

Margaret Wertheim is an internationally noted science writer and commentator. She is Founding Director of the Institute for Figuring in Los Angeles, and was the writer and host of Faith and Reason,a 1998 PBS documentary special about science and religion. She is the author of two books, Pythagoras’s Trousers and The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace.  For information on the work she will be presenting, please see the Institute For Figuring website.

 
6 - 7 p.m.   David Wilson, Presentation TBA

David Wilson is the Founding Director of the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles. In 2001, Wilson received a MacArthur Fellowship, the so-called genius grant.  See the Museum’s website.

Reception to follow

Exhibition of Student Projects of Wonder

Thursday, March 17
12:30 – 6:30 p.m.
UHall1762 A-C

Time and Wonder: Opening the Mind

12:30 – 1 p.m. Paul Harris, Introductory Remarks

Paul A. Harris, the Symposium’s director, is Associate Professor in English, and currently holds the Marymount Institute Chair of Interdisciplinary Studies at LMU.  He is also the President of the International Society for the Study of Time.

1 p.m.  J.T. Fraser, TAILOR, TINKER, IGUANA, VENUS: Time that takes survey of all the world

J.T. Fraser, Founder of the International Society for the Study of Time (1966), is the author of numerous books, most recently Time, Conflict, and Human Values (1999). He is also editor of The Voices of Time (1968, 1981) and of the ten volumes of The Study of Time series (1972-2000). Dr. Fraser has taught courses and conducted seminars in the study of time at several universities. For details on his career, see Dr. Fraser's website.

2 – 4 p.m.   Papers TBA

4 - 5 p.m.  Nicholas Tresilian, Malvolio’s Mantra: Art History as Cultural Selection

Nicholas Tresilian, an art historian with a particular interest in the relationship between art and cultural evolution, has been a broadcaster and filmmaker with BBC, ITV and Classic fm.  He is currently Vice-President of the International Society for the Study of Time.

5 - 6 p.m.  Frederick Turner, Time and Wonder in Shakespeare’s The Tempest

Frederick Turner, Founders Professor of Arts and Humanities at the University of Texas at Dallas, is the author of the many books, including several volumes of poetry, philosophical texts, studies of Shakespeare, and speculative cosmology. His work has been translated and published in languages around the world.


6 - 6:30p.m. Roundtable: Time and Interdisciplinarity  

St. Patrick’s Day Reception to follow

Featuring Irish music by a live band

Conference Theme

In very different ways, time and wonder open our minds to new impressions, ideas and values.  It is in and through time that our minds admit novelty; hence, time provides the means by which we maintain an open mind.  Time also functions as a bridging concept that opens up possible connections among different fields of knowledge and belief systems.  Wonder also opens the mind.  An experience of wonder makes our senses and minds feel stretched to a limit, presenting us with a moment of transformation.  Like time, wonder poises us on the edge of becoming: it gives us the sense of being changed by something and feeling able to change because of something.  

This one-day conference centers on the concepts of time and wonder in order to explore ways in which they open new paths of interdisciplinary thought and new ways of opening our minds to diverse knowledges and belief systems.   Such explorations are important in the face of a narrowness and divisiveness that seem to define our world today—narrowness of thinking born of academic and intellectual specialization, and socio-cultural divisiveness born of ever greater gulfs between rich and poor, and polarizing forces in many political and religious spheres.

 

Limited space remains open on the conference program.  Proposals (250-500 words) for 20 minute papers may be sent to me by email pharris@lmu.edu.  Deadline for proposals: March 3, 2005.  Conference papers will be considered for publication in the ISST's affiliated journal, Kronoscope.

The conference is sponsored by The Marymount Institute for Faith, Culture and the Arts at Loyola Marymount University.  It is also affiliated with the International Society for the Study of Time and the SynThink Forum at LMU. The conference is free and open to all interested persons.