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CURRENTS: Humanities Work Now

Eric Campbell (Philosophy) and Jennifer Maher (English)

Location

Performing Arts & Humanities Building : 216

Date & Time

October 1, 2018, 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm

Description

Fall 2018 Works-in-Progress Talks

Pragmatic Naturalism
Eric Campbell, Assistant Professor of Philosophy; 2018 Dresher Center Summer Faculty Research Fellow

Metaethicists are divided between theorists who think ethical properties are natural properties and those who think they are nonnatural. Pragmatic Naturalism combines the best of naturalism and nonnaturalism while avoiding their liabilities, and thereby provides a superior methodology for metaethics. This is imporatant because traditional approaches to metaethics have deep problems. First, none are able to explain why we should believe in ethical properties at all. They are moreover irrelevant to ethical practices. I will argue that Pragmatic Naturalism overcomes these and other problems.

and

Race, Space, and Freedom: The Ongoing Fight for Mobility Rights
Jennifer Maher, Associate Professor of English; 2018 Dresher Center Summer Faculty Research Fellow


This project analyzes how constraints on movement continue to negatively and disproportionately affect the economically disadvantaged in Baltimore, especially African Americans. Historically, restricting the spatial mobility of African Americans served as a linchpin to racial segregation and discrimination, especially in the South during Jim Crow. Protest strategies against such restrictions included the streetcar boycott movement, freedom rides on interstate buses, and public marches. Although the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 subsequently prohibited discrimination and guaranteed equal access to public accommodations and services, including federally-funded state transportation, mobility constraints continue to exacerbate long-standing racial inequalities.
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