Language Rights and Wrongs

This lecture series will be given by Joshua Katz (AEI), co-sponsored with the Galileo Center at Columbia Law School.

The purpose of this series is to explore the relationship between world and word.  Our emphasis will be on ancient texts—above all, Homer, Plato, and the Bible—but we will not shy away from the contemporary scene, in which it is sometimes claimed that both speech and its absence, silence, are violence and in which the use of “the wrong word” can lead to severe social, professional, and sometimes legal consequences.

Schedule

Tuesday, September 26 | In the Beginning Was the Word?

After introducing the series, Joshua Katz will lead a discussion of the relationship between language and creation in a number of ancient traditions, especially the Book of Genesis but also well beyond.

This event will be held in the Law School, room JG102B at 6 PM.

Tuesday, October 3 | Is Language Truthful?

Does language contain truth in itself? And whether or not it does, at what level are the words we use natural and at what level are they a matter of convention? Plato’s Cratylus provides the earliest in-depth discussion of these matters, and it turns out that we can learn something about our own linguistic problems today by considering this neglected dialogue.

This event will be held in the Law School, room JG102B at 6 PM.

Monday, October 9 | Originalism, Textualism, Traditionalism, or Activism?

No, we won’t be discussing the Constitution of the United States as such. But Dr. Katz hopes to demonstrate that the sorts of things that interest historical/comparative linguists when they read (e.g.) Homer’s Iliad are related to larger, and increasingly pressing, issues of how to interpret words and phrases, especially ones that have been pored over for decades, centuries, indeed millennia.

This event will be held in the Law School, room JG105 at 6 PM.