2020 Baker-Nord Distinguished Faculty Lecture – Depression: Medical Science and Medical Humanities
April 16th, 2020
THIS EVENT IS CANCELLED DUE TO CONCERNS ABOUT THE CORONAVIRUS AND COVID-19. Someone close to you is likely taking an antidepressant. In 2017 the World Health Organization named depressive disorders as the leading cause of illness and disability in the world. And yet, the definition of depression as illness, distinct from normal sadness, is still debated. How did we get here? This presentation explores the history of this ravaging but perplexing illness. Is it truly so widespread, or simply over-diagnosed? Is it a feature of modernity, or an illness known since antiquity? Is it found everywhere, or is it limited to certain cultural settings? Is depression mainly an emotional problem with physical expressions, or mainly a physical problem with emotional expressions? But the history of depression is not only about questions. It is also a history of hard-won knowledge, about causes and treatments—knowledge that that can provide hope and relief to suffering people.
Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil
April 20th, 2020
THIS EVENT IS CANCELLED DUE TO CONCERNS ABOUT THE CORONAVIRUS AND COVID-19. If there is any moral consensus in contemporary Europe and North America, it is that the Holocaust was evil. There is less agreement on what happened after the Holocaust, and whether Germany’s attempts to face that evil can be a model for other nations. In her talk Susan Neiman, author and Director of the Einstein Forum, will argue that precisely the slow and difficult path to Vergangenheitsaufarbeitung has important lessons for other peoples seeking to come to terms with their own national crimes. Her focus will be on what Americans can learn in our current struggles over racist history, with a discussion of monuments, reparations, and other fraught questions.
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