AMES, Iowa — Cambridge-educated philosopher, award-winning author and president of the world's oldest human rights organization, Kwame Anthony Appiah will speak at Iowa State University on living a moral life in the modern age.
"Ethics in a World of Strangers" will be at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 2, in the Memorial Union Great Hall. The presentation is part of the university's Technology, Globalization and Culture Series and the World Affairs Series. It is free and open to the public.
Named one of Foreign Policy's Top 100 public intellectuals, Appiah is the Laurence S. Rockefeller University Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University and president of the PEN American Center. He is the author of several books with a broad reach — from African struggles for self-determination to the nature of morality.
At Iowa State, Appiah will discuss his book, "Cosmopolitanism," a manifesto for our world in which identity becomes a weapon and difference has become a cause of pain and suffering. The book won the Arthur Ross Book Award, the most significant prize given to a book on international affairs. Appiah offers a new approach to living a moral life in the modern age.
A scholar of African and African-American studies, Appiah has established himself as an intellectual with a broad reach. He also is the author of "In My Father's House," "The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen" and "The Politics of Culture, the Politics of Identity." He has collaborated with Henry Louis Gates Jr. on several works, including "The Dictionary of Global Culture and Africana."
Born in London to a Ghanaian father and a white mother, Appiah was raised in Ghana and educated at Cambridge University, where he received a doctoral degree in philosophy. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2012, the White House awarded the National Humanities Medal to Appiah.
The event is also co-sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, George Gund Lecture Fund, The Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, International Studies, Technology, Globalization and Culture Series, World Affairs Series and the Committee on Lectures, which is funded by the Government of the Student Body.
More information on ISU lectures is available at http://www.lectures.iastate.edu, or by calling 515-294-9935.
