THE HOUSTON SEMINAR SPRING 2021 As we continue to navigate challenges and new ways of living with COVID-19, the Houston Seminar is offering more courses on Zoom, as well as outdoor, socially distanced in-person experiences around Houston. Please join us as we dive into literature, landscape, history, philosophy, A Note politics, and more. Most of our Zoom courses will be recorded, and will be available on our website for two weeks after they take place. Please note To Our that by registering for Zoom courses, you are understood to be giving your THE HOUSTON SEMINAR Patrons permission to be recorded. Visit www.houstonseminar.org to learn more and to register for courses. The Houston Seminar was founded in 1977 for the purpose of stimulating learning and cultural awareness. Each spring and fall the nonprofit group offers lectures and study tours focused on varied topics that may include art, January architecture, literature, music, theater, history, politics, philosophy, psychology, SMTW TH FS religion, the natural environment, and current trends and events. Spring 2021 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 BOARD OF DIRECTORS ADVISORY BOARD Daytime Page 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 The Many Names of Slavery 7 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 Gail Adler Nancy Crow Allen 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Bettie Cartwright Memorial Park: Vera Baker 9 31 Marcela Descalzi Brave Jan Cato Implementing the Ten-Year Plan February Kathleen Huggins Clarke Diane Cannon What’s with That Wall? Exploring 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 Sandy Godfrey Houston’s Street Art (tours) Barbara Catechis Kate Hawk 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Liz Crowell Nancy F. Haywood Lawther–Deer Park Prairie: 11 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Pristine Urban Survivor Erika de la Garza Pamela Howard 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 Josephine John Anne Furse Exposing the Historical 12 28 Emilie S. Kilgore Structures of Racism in Houston March Marta Galicki Gaye V. McCullough C. S. Lewis: Allegory of the Soul 13 1 2 3 4 5 6 Gastonia “Terri” Goodman Evelyn Thomas Nolen 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Sis Johnson Ann Norwood Smither Park: Celebrating the 14 Lynn Kelly Mary Flood Nugent Artist in Everyone 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Beverly “Sam” Ramirez 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 Rainey Knudson Evening Louisa Stude Sarofim 28 29 30 31 Marley Lott Anne Schlumberger Two Timely Questions 4 Nancy Manderson Jacqueline Andre Schmeal April Vaccines 101: Understanding 1 2 3 Dorothea Shaddock 5 Hadia Mawlawi the COVID-19 Vaccines 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Hinda Simon Judy Nyquist 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Barbara Sklar Water, Water Everywhere: 5 Gay Tigner Josephine Powell Smith Strategies and Success Stories 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 Emily Todd Ginger Teague 25 26 27 28 29 30 Global Trouble Spots: Mexico, 6 Carlisle Vandervoort Russia, Syria, and Iran May Vallette Windham 1 Gender 101 8 2 3 4 5 5 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Shipwrecked: Rebuilding Lives 11 after Disaster and Displacement 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 P.O. Box 22764 713.666.9000 Designed by 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 Houston, TX 77227-2764 www.houstonseminar.org Bach6.com What’s with That Wall? Exploring 10 Houston’s Street Art (panel) 30 31 PAGE 4 PAGE 5 Vaccines 101: Understanding the Courses COVID-19Vaccines TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 6:00–7:30 P.M. Zoom invitations will be emailed to subscribers. COVID-19 has infected over 40 million people and claimed more than Two Timely Questions one million lives. Governments and non-profit and multinational TWO TUESDAYS, JANUARY 19 AND 26, 5:00–6:30 P.M. organizations around the world are pouring unprecedented amounts Zoom invitations will be emailed to subscribers. of resources and efforts into the development and testing of safe, For as long as philosophy has existed, human beings have sought to effective COVID-19 vaccines that could shield us against this disease. understand the nature of truth, reason, value, reality, and existence. Why so many vaccine candidates? How do they work? How safe What better time than now to investigate fundamental questions are they? How are the United States and the world tackling vaccine about ourselves and our relationships to each other? Three Houston development, production, testing, and distribution? philosophers, Gwen Bradford, George Sher, and Tamler Sommers, Vaccine scientist Maria Elena Bottazzi, co-director of Texas Children’s will delve into two important questions and help us think about Hospital Center for Vaccine Development at Baylor College of answers. Medicine, will guide us to better understand this important topic. “ January 19: Why Be Moral? Not life, Why should I be just rather than unjust? In a session moderated by but Professor Bradford, Professors Sher and Sommers will discuss the Water, Water Everywhere: tensions between notions of social justice and individual self-interest. Strategies and Success Stories good life, January 26: What Is a Good Life? THREE THURSDAYS, FEBRUARY 4, 11, AND 18, 5:00–6:30 P.M. is What are the essential elements of a good life? Professor Bradford will Zoom invitations will be emailed to subscribers. discuss what makes for a flourishing life and the values arising from the February 4: Galveston Bay and exercise of our uniquely human capacities. to be the Storm Surge of Our Nightmares Gwen Bradford is an associate professor of philosophy at Rice Every summer, we dread The Big One: a wall of water smashing into chiefly University, where she specializes in value theory and normative ethics Galveston Bay and the Port of Houston, spilling millions of gallons valued. within the field of moral philosophy. Her bookAchievement (Oxford of crude oil and hazardous chemicals into the Gulf of Mexico. As University Press, 2015) was awarded the 2017 American Philosophical Texas Monthly recently described it, “Such a disaster would disrupt Association Book Prize. Professor Bradford was the 2019 recipient of global supply chains, cut off the military from much of its jet fuel, the Duncan Award for Outstanding Academic Achievement at Rice contaminate ecosystems in Galveston Bay, and destroy one of the University. Recent projects focus on uniqueness, perfectionism, and state’s core economic engines—not to mention kill a bunch of Texans.” ” ill-being. Join a conversation between Eric Berger and Jim Blackburn about Socrates George Sher is the Herbert S. Autrey Professor of Philosophy at Rice hurricane storm surges, coastal defense barriers, and mid-bay gate University and is the author of six books including In Praise of Blame proposals. (Oxford University Press, 2005) and Who Knew? Responsibility Without Awareness (Oxford University Press, 2009). The theme of control February 11: Bayous, Reservoirs, Ponds, and More: figures prominently in his most recent book,Equality for Inegalitarians Strategies for Inland Flood Mitigation (Cambridge University Press, 2014), and a new book entitled A Wild Flood control projects are massive, generational undertakings involving West of the Mind will soon be available. Professor Sher’s current areas bayou conveyance, retention reservoirs, detention ponds, and private of research include responsibility, unintentional omissions, moral property buyouts. Join a conversation between Auggie Campbell and ignorance, and distributive justice. a senior representative from the Harris County Flood Control District Tamler Sommers is an associate professor of philosophy at the University to learn about flood mitigation efforts and the paramount need for of Houston. He works in the areas of moral psychology, free will, and regional collaboration to address the kind of cataclysmic flooding that moral responsibility with additional focus on honor, punishment, and doesn’t respect municipal boundaries. revenge. Professor Sommers is the author of Relative Justice: Cultural February 18: Low-Impact Development: Diversity, Free Will, and Moral Responsibility (Princeton University Press, Mitigation for Property Owners 2012); A Very Bad Wizard: Morality Behind the Curtain, 2nd edition If every individual property owner in Houston took simple measures to (Routledge, 2016); and Why Honor Matters (Basic Books, 2018). mitigate stormwater runoff, the size and scope of immense, big-ticket PAGE 6 PAGE 7 engineering solutions to catastrophic flooding could be reduced. movements sweeping Europe, encouraging Eurosceptic and anti-Islamist movements, and Kevin Shanley leads a discussion about low-impact development— harnessing a global disinformation campaign, all to further its long-held Russian national small-scale approaches for filtering and storing runoff, with an goals and objectives of empire. This provocative statecraft has been orchestrated by four-time emphasis on conservation and use of on-site natural features to elected president and KGB alumnus, Vladimir Putin. Robert Moser will examine this growing protect water quality. and evolving presence in Russia’s global influence and its implications for U.S. foreign policy. Eric Berger is the co-founder of Space City Weather and is a certified February 23: Syria—Endgame or Escalation? meteorologist and senior space editor at Ars Technica. He was a Syria’s nine-year civil war erupted into a humanitarian crisis with close to a million Syrians Pulitzer Prize finalist at the HoustonChronicle for his coverage of fleeing the war zone for safety in Europe. At the present time, the United States maintains Hurricane Ike. a military presence in Syria with a mission to protect the oilfields and help fight against Jim Blackburn is a professor of environmental law in the civil and remnants of the Islamic State. Tensions between U.S. and Russian forces have escalated with environmental engineering department at Rice University. Blackburn Russia's failure to adhere to mutual de-confliction processes and with Syrian and Russian serves as co-director of the Severe Storm Prediction, Education, and troops attacking opposition forces.