2014–15 connections

Frans de Waal, director, Living Links Center; C. H. Candler Professor of Primate Behavior, Emory University. Author of The Age of Empathy: (2009) and The Bonobo and the Atheist (2013). “The Evolution of Connectivity: Empathy, Altruism, and Primate Social Skills.” 

Maya Lin, artist and designer. Lecture video.

Susannah Heschel, Eli Black Professor of Jewish Studies, Dartmouth College.
“Ethical Challenges of Scholarship” in Eugene; “Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: The Life and Legacy of Abraham Joshua Heschel” in Portland.

Janna Levin, astrophysicist and writer. She is the author of How the Universe Got Its Spots and a novel, A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines. “From the Big Bang to Black Holes: Time, the Universe, and Everything.”

William Deresiewicz, author of Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life. “What is College For? A Defense of the Liberal Arts” and “Education in a Neoliberal Age”