Steven Vogel, the Brickman - Shannon Professor and chair of the Department of Philosophy at Denison University, will present “Thinking Like a Mall” on Thursday, Nov. 20, at 4:30 p.m. in Clark Hall, Room 206.
The talk will cover the critical evolution of Aldo Leopold's land ethic, which encourages people to recognize the complexity and independence of natural entities—and, with that, respect and protect them from destruction by humans. Vogel will look at the history of a Columbus, Ohio, shopping mall that was built in the 1980s but eventually fell into bankruptcy and was demolished. Malls too, he will argue, possess complexity and independence—yet, unlike mountains, nobody seems to find their destruction morally objectionable. Vogel will ask why—and propose that perhaps mountains and malls have more in common than one might imagine.
Vogel is the author of Against Nature and a forthcoming book on environmental civics in the critical theory tradition.
