I proposed the following courses for LIU’s Hutton House Lecture Series for the months of Jan-April 2023. For further information, contact me or Karen Young at Karen.Yiung@liu.edu.
“UNDERSTANDING THE MAGA MOVEMENT” -Online
Dr. David Sprintzen
The so-called MAGA Movement that Donald Trump has called into being has profoundly transformed American politics and culture in unprecedented ways. What explains it? What are its roots? What are its goals? What are the sources of the passionate commitment of many of its adherents? And what is its future? We will try to address these questions, while locating the movement within the contours of American history and culture.
“RACE IN AMERICA: CONSTRUCTIVE APPROACHES TO A CULTURAL CHALLENGE“ Online
Dr. David Sprintzen
As American is facing its racial history as never before, we are being torn apart by conflicting polemical narratives coming from the political Right and Left. The Right downplays, when it doesn’t actually deny, the racism in our past, while insisting that any past racism has been essentially rectified. The Left, on the other hand, has essentially branded the United States as an essentially racist country, while adopting Critical Race Theory and the New York Times’ “1619 Project”, with its claim that “racism is in our DNA.” We will address these polemical positions, and seek to provide an historically and culturaly more constructive analysis of the reality of race in America.
“ALBERT CAMUS: THE CONSCIENCE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION” –In person
Dr. David Sprintzen
The second youngest person to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature, Camus received the award for “his important literary production, which … illuminated the problems of the human conscience in our times.” What is so culturally significant about his work? And what can it contribute to addressing our moral and political challenges? We will address these issues by considering some of his most famous works, including The Myth of Sisyphus, The Plague, and The Rebel, as well as his famous conflict with the noted Existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre.
“JOHN DEWEY: AMERICA’S MOST REPRESENTATIVE PHILOSOPHER” – In person
Dr. David Sprintzen
No thinker has better captured the distinctive strengths and weaknesses of American civilization than John Dewey. The founder of so-called “progressive education,” he elaborated the uniquely American philosophical perspective of Pragmatism, with which our culture is so profoundly identified. What is this Pragmatism? What are its strengths? Its limitations? And how can we benefit from better understanding its contribution to our civilization? We will explore his thought and consider what enlightenment it has to offer us.
Dr. David Sprintzen
Emeritus Professor of Philosophy
Long Island University
516-364-2178
dsprintz@liu.edu
www.davidsprintzen.com
Blog: dsprintz.wordpress.com
Author: “Camus: A Critical Examination”
& “Critique of Western Philosophy and Social Theory”