Previous Poynter Center Roundtables

The Poynter Center hosts a series to highlight creative work and research by IU Bloomington faculty in ethics and democratic life and culture.

2009 Poynter Center Roundtables

	Sandra Shapshay Bioethics at the Movies Thursday, Feb. 12, 2009, Sandra Shapshay, Dept. of Philosophy, spoke about her book, Bioethics at the Movies. The presentation included clips from Million Dollar Baby, Citizen Ruth, and Gattaca, with lively discussion after each clip.

Colin Allen

Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right From Wrong

Thursday, April 2, 2009, Colin Allen, Dept. of History and Philosophy of Science and the Cognitive Science Program, spoke on his book Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right From Wrong.

John Lucaites

No Caption Needed: Iconic Photographs, Public Culture, and Liberal Democracy

Thursday, April 30, 2009, John Lucaites, Dept. of Communication & Culture, spoke on his book, No Caption Needed: Iconic Photographs, Public Culture, and Liberal Democracy, with Robert Hariman.

Consider some of the iconic photos and what they say and what is left unsaid. Some of the photos are a sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square at the end of World War II, Dorothea Lange’s photo of the gaunt woman in the Depression, and the naked Vietnamese girl running in terror from a napalm attack.

Professor Lucaites was a Poynter Center Fellow in 2006-07, when the topic was “Memory: Ethics, Politics, Aesthetics.”

Scott Russell Sanders

A Conservationist Manifesto

	On Thursday, September 24, 2009, Scott Russell Sanders spoke about his new book, A Conservationist Manifesto. Sanders, a Distinguished Professor of English Emeritus at Indiana University, writes about the connections between people and their environment, physically and spiritually. Sanders sees the topic of this book as "the greatest challenge facing our society, which is to shift from a culture based on consumption to a culture based on caretaking." Sanders asks, "In a time of ecological calamity and widespread human suffering, how should we imagine a good life?" Sanders and participants engaged in a lively discussion about the concepts in the book. The photo shows Sanders listening to a participant.

Rob Kunzman

Write These Laws On Your Children

What do we know about homeschooling in the United States? Rob Kunzman tackles part of the question in his new book, Write These Laws On Your Children: Inside the World of Conservative Christian Homeschooling. Kunzman, an associate professor in the IU School of Education, studied six home-schooling families and followed their daily routines. He discussed his findings at the Poynter Center, Thursday, October 8, 2009.