Medieval and Renaissance Studies minor hosts three talks

The Medieval and Renaissance Studies minor will offer the first of three talks this semester at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 7, in the Common Room of Saint Mary’s Hall. Dr. Richard Tristano, Department of History, will present “From Humanism to the Humanities: A Book Review.”

Dr. Tristano will review the central argument of Anthony Grafton and Lisa Jardine’s From Humanism to the Humanities: Education and the Liberal Arts in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Europe, and then consider our Saint Mary’s context by exploring such questions as whether we have the goal of the moral education of our students, or if we are in the business of offering education as an investment and an entrée into the power structure. The talk should be provocative, and faculty are especially encouraged to attend and help think through these issues.

The talk, co-sponsored by the School of Humanities and the Department of History, is free and open to the public; refreshments will be provided.

For more information contact Dr. John Kerr at Ext. 1673 or jkerr@smumn.edu.

The remaining two MRSM talks this semester are as follows:

• “Before Gerbert Met Erbert: A Selective Look at Quelques Petites Choses from ‘Science’ and Religion in the Middle Ages” by Dr. Paul Nienaber SJ, Department of Physics, at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 29, in Room 238, Brother Charles Hall

• “The Dialectic of American Humanism: John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces, Marsilio Ficino, and Paul Oskar Kristeller” by Vernon Leighton, librarian, Winona State University at 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 28, in the President’s Room.