Release date: Jan. 7, 2004
Contact: Jan Gleason, Assistant Vice President, Public Affairs,
at 404-727-0639 or jgleason@emory.edu

Emory Professor to Examine Ethics and Literature

Literature and the arts play a fundamental role in moral education, says Emory University philosophy professor Pamela Hall. She will examine this role in "Other Minds, Other Hearts: Concerning Ethics and Literature" in Emory's Great Teachers Lecture on Thursday, Jan. 22 at 7:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public and will be held at the Miller-Ward Alumni House at 815 Houston Mill Rd. Free parking is available.

In Hall's upcoming lecture she will argue that character--the habits of desires, emotions and motivations that help to define each individual--is a crucial concern for ethics. Using examples from the literature of Shakespeare, James Joyce and Toni Morrison, she will explore how character is shaped, while explaining the defining roles that both literature and art play in that development.

Chairwoman of the Department of Women's Studies and associate professor of philosophy, Hall received the Emory Williams Award for Distinguished Teaching in the Humanities from Emory in 1992, and was later awarded the Massee-Martin/NEH Distinguished Teaching Chair for the term of 1998-2002. Hall's primary interests include ethics, moral psychology and feminist thought. In 1994 she published "Narrative and the Natural Law: An Interpretation of Thomistic Ethics," and currently is writing another book on tragedy and virtue ethics.

Every year the Great Teachers Lecture Series showcases some of Emory's most distinguished faculty members. This lecture is part of a series sponsored jointly by Emory's Center for Lifelong Learning, the Emory Office of Public Affairs and the Association of Emory Alumni. For more information please visit www.cll.emory.edu/gtls or call 404-727-6000.

Back