Event

PHILOSOPHY TALK with Ken Taylor and John Perry

This is an afternoon of two live radio broadcasts.

12:00 show: "What are Words Worth?" with Professor Geoff Nunberg, an American linguist and professor at the UC Berkeley School of Information. He also serves as the language, usage, and society commentator for National Public Radio's Fresh Air, and is the author of "The Years of Talking Dangerously." Hosts Ken Taylor and John Perry welcome back Professor Nunberg to explore how words shape our minds. Why do we adopt new words, or give old words new meaning? Can we eliminate a concept by renaming it, or eliminating the word for it?

3:00 show: "War, Sacrifice and the Media" with Professor Judith Butler, Maxine Elliot professor in the Departments of Rhetoric and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley and author of "Frames of War: When is Life Grievable?" The media often presents a sanitized and one sided narrative of war, torture and other forms of violence that blots out the faces and silences the voices of many of the main victims: the refugees, the victims of unjust imprisonment and torture, and the immigrants virtually enslaved by their starvation and legal disenfranchisement. Join hosts John Perry and Ken Taylor as they probe the limits of the media representations of the real human costs of war and other forms of violence.