What Ought We to Sustain?

is Prof. Kelly Parker’s title for this year's final Applied Philosophy Lyceum on Friday March 22, 2013, at 4 pm in Room 304 of the James Union Building on the MTSU campus.

Parker's presentation will focus on the global environmental crisis. As we collectively look to the future, questions of sustainability loom large. But sustainability, Parker will argue, is far from a value neutral notion. How, and by whom, are competing conceptions of justice, gender equity, and human rights to be weighed and evaluated? The problem of humanity's future survival cannot even be raised, let alone answered, without engaging both in theory and practice with the kind(s) of communities and environments for which we hope and struggle.

Kelly Parker is currently Professor of Philosophy at Grand Valley State University where his main interests are American philosophy and environmental philosophy. He earned his Ph.D. at Vanderbilt University and holds a B.A. in English and Philosophy from Texas A&M University.

He is the author of THE CONTINUITY OF PIERCE'S THOUGHT (Vanderbilt University Press, 1998). Other publications include: "Pragmatism and Environmental Thought" (in ENVIRONMENTAL PRAGMATISM, A. Light and E. Katz, eds., Routledge Press, 1996), "Josiah Royce on The Spirit of the Community and the Nature of Philosophy" (JOURNAL OF SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY 2000), and "Normative Judgment in Jazz" (THE NORMATIVE THOUGHT OF CHARLES S. PEIRCE, Fordham University Press, 2012). He is co-editor of the books TEACHING SUSTAINABILITY/TEACHING SUSTAINABLY (Stylus Press, 2012) and JOSIAH ROYCE FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY (Lexington, 2012).

The lecture is free and open to the public. A discussion period and an informal reception will follow. For more information, contact the MTSU Philosophy Department at 898-2907.