Superdeep #23: “Gender Orientation” (Nathan Hauthaler) | Feb 22, 8:04pm

6:04pm   |   LIB 2001

 

Join Superdeep for our first Workshop collaboration with DKU’s Gender Studies Initiative: Nathan Hauthaler will present on his research on “Gender Orientation”. Thu Feb 22, 6:04pm LIB 2001.

Snacks & drinks will be served at the workshop.

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The Workshop is Superdeep‘s venue for philosophical work-in-progress research & practice. For more info or to submit proposals for the Workshop, follow this link; for more info on Superdeep more generally, follow this one.

Superdeep is sponsored by DKU’s Humanities Research Center.

Superdeep #22: “Wild Experiment: Feeling Science & Secularism After Darwin” (Donovan Schaefer, UPenn) | Jan 11, 6:04pm

IB 2026

What’s better than to start the new year & semester on a Wild Experiment? Join Superdeep in welcoming Donovan Schaefer (University of Pennsylvania) for a discussion of his eponymous monograph (Wild Experiment: Feeling Science & Secularism After Darwin), & comments by James Miller (…& food & drink).
Thu Jan 11, 6:04pm, IB 2026.

For companion events with Prof Schaefer that week, consider also his:
– University Colloquium: Feeling is Believing: A New Approach to Conspiracy Theory (Tue Jan 9, 4:00-5:30pm AB 1087), and
– (for faculty or staff members) Faculty Development and CTL Workshop: The Affective Academic: Reflecting on Embodied Research and Pedagogy. Thursday 3:30-4:30pm, Library Tea House. For the latter Professor Schaefer asks that you kindly read the circulated text on cogency theory and the intellectual passions in preparation for the workshop.

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The Workshop is Superdeep‘s venue for philosophical work-in-progress research & practice. For more info or to submit proposals for the Workshop, follow this link; for more info on Superdeep more generally, follow this one.

Superdeep is sponsored by DKU’s Humanities Research Center.

Feeling is Believing, Professor Donovan Schaefer, January 9-11, 2024

The Humanities Research Center is pleased to invite students and faculty to meet with our scholar-in-residence, Professor Donovan Schaefer, from the University of Pennsylvania, who will be at DKU during the first week at of the spring semester.

Professor Schafer is well known for his work on affect theory and has published two major monographs on the relationship of religion, science and affect.

His first book, Religious Affects, draws on affect theory and evolutionary biology to explore the extent to which nonhuman animals have the capacity to practice religion, linking human forms of religion and power through a new analysis of the chimpanzee waterfall dance as observed by Jane Goodall. In his compelling case for the use of affect theory in religious studies, Donovan Schaefer provides a new model for mapping relations between religion, politics, species, globalization, secularism, race, and ethics.

His recent award-winning monograph, Wild Experiment, challenges the conventional wisdom that feeling and thinking are separate. Drawing on science studies, philosophy, and affect theory, Schaefer reconceptualizes rationality as defined by affective processes at every level. The fact that cognition is felt, Schaefer demonstrates, is both why science succeeds and why it fails. He concludes that science, secularism, atheism, and reason itself are not separate from feeling but comprehensively defined by it.

While at DKU, Professor Schaefer will lead three events.

University Colloquium

Feeling is Believing: A New Approach to Conspiracy Theory

Tuesday, January 9, 4pm-5:30pm, AB1087

What makes people believe? How do science and disinformation battle to convince us? And why has the apocalyptic discourse of conspiracy theory risen to prominence in the current political moment in America? This talk considers a new way of assessing the relationship between thinking and feeling, suggesting that we see them as deeply interrelated rather than fundamentally separate. Shifting our frame of reference allows us to draw a clearer map of how and why conspiracy theories have managed to gain such a powerful hold in contemporary society.

Jointly organized with the University Colloquium Committee

Faculty Workshop

Thursday, January 11, 3:30-4:30pm, in the Library Tea House

The Affective Academic: Reflecting on Embodied Research and Emotional Pedagogy

In this workshop, participants have the opportunity to explore the emotional dimension of research and teaching. How does affect/emotion affect the process of research discovery and publication? How does affect/emotion shape faculty pedagogy  positively or negatively? How can paying attention to the affective dimension of faculty life help to strengthen well-being and performance?

This event will be followed by faculty happy hour from 4:30-5:30pm.

Jointly organized with the Center for Teaching and Learning and the Office of Faculty Development

Superdeep Seminar

Thursday, January 11, 6-7pm, IB2026

Wild Experiment: Feeling Science and Secularism after Darwin

In this seminar, Professor Schaefer will discuss the main ideas of his recent book that defines rationality as a process shaped by affect. Professor Miller will respond with a discussion of Chinese philosophical ideas of the heart/mind  (xin 心) and Daoist theories of embodied knowledge. All participants are invited to contribute their own ideas to the conversation.

Jointly organized with Superdeep.

Superdeep #21: “Behind the Text: AI’s Absent Subjectivity” | Thu Dec 7, 6:04pm

IB 2026 | Zoom 6979897969

Superdeep ends the semester with yet another such Workshop session, with Siyu (Sue) Wang helping us see “Behind the Text: AI’s Absent Subjectivity” (…& food & drink). 6:04pm, IB 2026 | Zoom 6979897969.

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The Workshop is Superdeep‘s venue for philosophical work-in-progress research & practice. For more info or to submit proposals for the Workshop, follow this link; for more info on Superdeep more generally, follow this one.

Superdeep is sponsored by DKU’s Humanities Research Center.

Superdeep #19: “Defying Displacement: The Case of Philadelphia Chinatown” (Caroline Aung) | Tue Oct 24, 5:30 & 6pm

5:30pm IB 1008 (IB Auditorium)
6:00 pm IB 2028 | Zoom 6979897969

The Superdeep Workshop returns on a chord of high notes: on Tue Oct 24, Caroline Aung of Philadelphia’s Chinatown Development Corporation (PCDC) will join us for a presentation and interactive workshop for “Defying Displacement: The Case of Philadelphia Chinatown“. The event is Superdeep first collaboration with DKU’s HRC Citizenship Lab and the Center for the Study of Contemporary China (CSCC) Meanings, Identities, & Communities Cluster.
As an auftakt to the event we will screen the Philly Chinatown documentary “Look Forward & Carry on the Past” (Dornfeld, Kodish, & Wei’s 2002; accessible here).

Screening: Tue Oct 24, 5:30pm IB 1008.
Workshop: Tue Oct 24, 6:00pm IB 2028.

Snacks & drinks at the screening & workshop.

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The Workshop is Superdeep‘s venue for philosophical work-in-progress research & practice. For more info or to submit proposals for the Workshop, follow this link; for more info on Superdeep more generally, follow this one.

Superdeep is sponsored by DKU’s Humanities Research Center.

Superdeep Nighthawks: “Free Solo” (Vasarhelyi & Chin 2018) | Thu Oct 12, 8pm

IB 1008 (IB Auditorium)

A week 7 screening of Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi & Jimmy Chin‘s 2018 Free Solo (& food & drink) is the Nighthawks‘ way of saying: hang in there… ✊  Thu, Oct 12, 8pm c.t., IB 1008 (Auditorium).

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Superdeep Nighthawks meet on Thu eve (8pm till late).
2023 Session  1 theme: the Mind.

For more info or proposals for the Nighthawks follow this link, for Superdeep more generally this one.

Superdeep is sponsored by DKU’s Humanities Research Center.

Superdeep Nighthawks: “My Octopus Teacher” (Ehrlich & Reed 2020) | Thu Sept 28, 8pm

IB 1008 (IB Auditorium)

Superdeep remain the Nighthawks when attending to My Octopus Teacher (Pippa Ehrlich & James Reed 2020) …& food & drink. Thu, Sept 28, 8pm, IB 1008 (Auditorium).

The screening is Superdeep‘s first collaboration with the DKU Sustainability Club. Club members will join us to introduce the club and their current activities.

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Superdeep Nighthawks meet on Thu eve (8pm till late). Session 1 theme: the Mind.

For more info or proposals for the Nighthawks follow this link, for Superdeep generally this one.

Superdeep is sponsored by DKU’s Humanities Research Center.

Superdeep Nighthawks: “Ghost in the Shell” (Oshii 1995) | Thu Sept 7, 8:42pm

IB 1008 (IB Auditorium)

Superdeep Nighthawks are starting the new academic year by summoning Mamoru Oshii’s 1995 Ghost in the Shell (& food & drink). Thu, Sept 7, 8:42 pm, IB 1008 Auditorium.

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HRC Superdeep Nighthawks meet on Thu eve (8pm till late). Session 1 theme: the Mind.

For more info or proposals for the Nighthawks follow this link, for Superdeep generally this link.

HRC co-sponsors Three Dialogues in Italy and the Vatican

Last month the Humanities Research Center co-sponsored and participated in three cross-cultural dialogues in Italy. The first, at the Pari Center, brought academics from China, Europe and the USA together for a five days of intensive dialogue on East-West philosophy in relation to sustainability. Discussion sessions in the morning and afternoon were complemented by relaxed lunches and dinners at the local restaurant in the village of Pari, about 30km south of Siena.

The events in Pari were followed by two dialogues in Rome. The first took place at La Sapienza University in Rome, where the topic of east-west philosophical dialogue continued in the presence of faculty and graduate students in the Italian Institute for Oriental Studies.

The series of events culminated in a high-level two-day meeting at the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences (PASS) inside the Vatican City, chaired by Cardinal Peter Turkson. This event was both cross-cultural and interdisciplinary, featuring economists from PASS and other institutions in dialogue with philosophers and other experts in Chinese culture. This Dialogue Between Civilizations on Global Commons invited academics to consider the underlying philosophical and ethical issues in the United Nations’ seventeen Sustainable Development Goals. DKU professor Xiang Zairong spoke on the topic of gender equality, and HRC co-director James Miller spoke on the topic of climate change.

As a result of the HRC’s co-sponsorship of these events, DKU was able to bring two students, Tianyu Zhang (DKU ‘24) and Siyu Wang (DKU ‘25) to participate in the events.

Ms. Wang said, “The conference in the Vatican City offered me a unique perspective on how critical issues such as the sustainable development goals set by the UN are discussed and addressed by a diverse range of stakeholders, each with their own backgrounds and employing various approaches.”

It was an invaluable experience for the students and the professors to join in the various dialogues and also to participate in a closed, high level event at the Vatican. The dialogues revealed profound philosophical differences regarding the underlying values embedded in the SDGs, and their interpretation within different civilizational frameworks. There was an intensive discussion on how key Chinese cultural concepts such as 仁 (ren; benevolence, humanity), 福 (fu; good fortune), 富 (fu; wealth) and 繁荣 (fanrong; flourishing) should play a role in articulating the SDGs within a Chinese context and might contribute to a more globalized discussion of the ethical values and worldview underpinning the transition to an ecologically sustainable civilization.  This demonstrated the necessity for further cross-cultural research among the world’s philosophies and religions on the topic of the United Nations’ sustainable development goals.