Rachel's Paideia Blog

Brown Symposium

I attended (via webcast) the first Salon, Arts, Sciences, Religions-Conflict or Convergence. This topic sounded really interesting and I was really excited about the salon style format of this year's Brown Symposium. It definitely seemed refreshing and unique and new--all those good things. However, I'm not so sure that I actually preferred it in practice. I found it harder to follow, occasionally confusing, and much less focused than traditional lectures. Maybe there were too many speakers, but I didn't find it all that informative. I'm sure all of these people have very interesting ideas, I just don't think this is the best way to go about expressing those ideas. I don't feel like a got a clear conception of these people's best work and true opinions. I also really got a sense of competition amongst some of the speakers, which was a little disappointing. The discussion occasionally seemed like a display of who knew the biggest words and it got a little pretentious.
The prompt for the discussion was very strange to me. Maybe I just didn't understand it, but it seemed inappropriate and unlikely that an insightful hour-long discussion could arise from a (religious?) depiction of a mouse. In any case, it bothered me.
At one point I felt like Jonah Leher was sort of being attacked by the other speakers who specialized in religion. One of the other speakers expressed the importance of religious institutions in charity work (specifically starting a club for minority children), but I don't see how that is specific to religion. And because the discussion moved so quickly and so many people had different things to say, many of the questions I had that probably would have been answered in a traditional lecture were not. Ultimately salon-style discussions are interesting to participate in, but I don't think it was the kind of idea-stimulating intellectual learning I expect from Brown Symposium. It seemed more like a very diverse group discussing something controversial at a dinner party rather than in an academic setting. I'm going to blame this on the fact that it was the first salon and nobody really knew what they were doing. Maybe the topic just wasn't my cup of tea.

The second salon, Education, Technology and the Arts, was much much much better for me. Jonah Leher started off with some interesting information that he seemed to think was common knowledge about the plasticity of the human brain and how our brain works to incorporate new technology while using less of its power for other things, such as "reading nature." I guess I knew how much technology has influenced brain development, but I never really thought about it. The fact that we can no longer "read nature" as well as we could at one point because we learned how to read is really fascinating to me. I think it was a good frame for the discussion, rather than "google is making us stupid."
I was actually reminded of a TED talk I saw recently about language development in babies. One studied showed that an infant's exposure to a foreign language between three and six months greatly improved their ability to recognize sounds in that language. However, this was only true if they were exposed to it by an actual person. Exposure by television or audio had almost no effect. I can see where concern would arise from the negative effects technology has on us--what we are losing. However, Leher emphasized the importance of focusing on what is GAINED rather than what we lose. It's a difficult thing to judge!
I actually don't really like the audience participation aspect of these lectures. Maybe it's because I'm not the kind of person who is inclined to ask questions in these sorts of situations, but I never feel that they are all that interesting or relevant to the discussion.
Overall the Brown Symposium was interesting. I heard a lot of different ideas, I only wish they had been further developed or more individualized. It was interesting to hear from so many speakers, but I don't feel like a got a really clear, straight-forward concept from any of them. I guess I prefer more structured lectures because they have more of a focus and direction. The speaker will have more control over exactly what they want to say and thus nothing unnecessary or off-topic will be likely to come up.

posted by Rachel @ 10:11 AM