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Book Group: Past books
Book Group Information
Tue, 01/15/2013 - 5:34pm — Sandra.CoynerA list of books selected and read by this book group from 2008 to 2013 can be found here. For recent books, see below.
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| 01/19/2015 - 2:00pm | Book Grp: Carol Tavris "Mistakes Were Made (but not by me)" |
Carol Tavris will be visiting Ashland as the spring featured speaker in our Thomas Jefferson Lecture Series. She wrote this book in 2007. Full title: Mistakes were made (but not by me): Why we justify foolish beliefs, bad decisions, and hurtful acts. She addresses cognitive dissonance and why it is not in itself sufficient to challenge pre-set interpretations already inside our minds. |
| 12/15/2014 - 2:00pm | Book Group Discussion: "Nonsense on Stilts" by Massimo Pigliucci |
Nonsense on Stilts: How to tell Science from Bunk by Massimo Pigliucci (2010) distinguishes between science, hard science, soft science, almost science, and pseudoscience, and presents a few case studies about current controversies over the nature and uses of science. Note change of date to third Monday at 2 pm |
| 11/17/2014 - 2:00pm | Book Group Discussion: "Age of Insight" by Eric Kandel (2012). second half |
Age of Insight: The Quest to Understand the Unconscious in Art, Mind, and Brain, from Vienna 1900 to the Present, by Eric Kandel (2012). We will discuss the first half (up to p. 225) in October and the second half in November. Vienna in about 1900 fostered unusual cross-disciplinary interaction between artists and scientists, leading to the first real thinking about the importance of the unconscious. Kandel traces these beginnings through to the present and the new neuroscience, including discussion of the arts. |
| 10/20/2014 - 2:00pm | Book Group Discussion: "Age of Insight" by Eric Kandel (2012). first half |
Age of Insight: The Quest to Understand the Unconscious in Art, Mind, and Brain, from Vienna 1900 to the Present Vienna in about 1900 fostered unusual cross-disciplinary interaction between artists and scientists, leading to the first real thinking about the importance of the unconscious. Kandel traces these beginnings through to the present and the new neuroscience, including important discussions of the arts. |
| 09/17/2014 - 1:30pm | Book Grp discussion: Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, by Jon Meacham (2012) |
Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power won the Pulitzer prize. It's about our center's namesake. Of so many books about Jefferson, this one focuses on his uses of power. |
| 08/20/2014 - 3:30pm | Book Group CANCELLED for August 2014 |
switching to 1:30 start time beginning Sept. 2014 |
| 07/16/2014 - 3:30pm | Book Group: On Being Certain, by Robert Burton (2008) |
On Being Certain: Believing you are Right Even When You're Not by Robert Burton (2008): challenges conventional ideas about "knowledge" and "belief," using findings and frameworks from recent research about how humans actually reason and the structure of the brain. Should change readers' answers to the question "how do we know what we know?" Gives us more tools for being more skeptical about some of our own cherished "knowledge" and some new ways of thinking about our own biases and heuristics. |
| 06/11/2014 - 3:30pm | DATE CHANGE Jeff Ctr Book Grp: "The Black Swan" by N. N. Taleb |
For June 2014 we have switched our date from the third Wednesday to the second Wednesday. On June 11, we will discuss The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. This much-cited book explores why and how humans get blind-sided by rare events. Our brains focus on specifics instead of generalities, and overvalue what we already know and don't consider what we don't. We restrict our thinking to the irrelevant and inconsequential, and are vulnerable to large events that in fact shape our world. |
| 05/21/2014 - 3:30pm | Book group - "Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else" |
Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else by Chrystia Freeland (2013). We know that income inequality is increasing in America, but how much? How rich are these new super-rich? How do they justify their privilege? Do they spend their money creating jobs, or perhaps making charitable contributions? What is their politics? Why do they profess to experience so much stress? Should we by sympathetic? Apathetic? Or what? |
| 04/16/2014 - 3:30pm | Book Group Discussion -- "A Manual for Creating Atheists" |
Peter Boghossian is the author of A Manual for Creating Atheists (2013), advocating that we challenge religion for its reliance on faith rather than evidence. |