On February 27, 2008, the BRC hosted a public dialogue event called “Understanding Death, Appreciating Life,” featuring Harvard professors Harvey Cox, Tu Weiming, and Nur Yalman. Celebrated writer and cultural anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson provided an opening reflection.

“To be with someone who is dying is a profound learning how to love,” said Bateson. “I can think of no deeper learning of how to love than physically caring for my father during his dying. You know, maybe death and love are connected in some ways — part of what makes life so precious and so beautiful.”

These comments captured the compassionate spirit of the event, described in full this new feature article called “Learning to learn About Death”.

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Please join us this fall for two more events investigating how an expanded, integrated view of death and life can contribute to the peaceful evolution of humanity. More information soon.

* September 19-20: Fifth Annual Ikeda Forum for Intercultural Dialogue (celebrating the BRC’s 15th Anniversary)

* October 18: Lecture by Dr. Yoichi Kawada of the Institute for Oriental Philosophy, with commentary by Mary Catherine Bateson

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Expanding Philosophical Horizons

Sunday, April 13, 2008

On April 13, the BRC sponsored a panel at the Philosophy of Education Society Annual Meeting, held in Cambridge, Mass. Titled “Expanding Philosophical Horizons,” the session focused on three 20th-century educators featured in the BRC book Ethical Visions: W.E.B. Du Bois, Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, and Maria Montessori. The panel was chaired by Jane Roland Martin of the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and included presentations from Rodino Anderson of Bowdoin College, Monte Joffee of The Renaissance Charter School in New York, Jennifer Whitcomb of the University of Colorado at Boulder, and Dale Snauwaert of the University of Toledo.

Snauwaert suggested that Du Bois, Makiguchi, and Montessori have set an example for educators today as “voices in the wilderness for humanism in their own times. They championed respect and care for persons in the face of dehumanizing social structures, ideologies, movements.”

Read a feature story about the panel.