Visiting Humanities Scholar to Offer Lecture Series on 'Politics & Ethics of Intoxication'

POTSDAM, NY (02/16/2012)(readMedia)-- A visiting guest scholar will offer a series of lectures on an "intoxicating" subject at SUNY Potsdam this spring.

National Endowment for the Humanities Distinguished Visiting Professor Dr. Michael A. Rinella will offer three public talks about historic views on inebriation, with a series entitled "The Politics and Ethics of Intoxication: Ancient and Modern Perspectives."

The National Endowment for the Humanities Faculty Development Program at SUNY Potsdam brings a distinguished visiting professor to campus each year. The College welcomes Dr. Rinella as a distinguished writing professor in the Department of Philosophy for Spring 2012.

In the NEH Spring 2012 Public Lecture Series, Rinella will offer talks on Feb. 23, March 22 and April 19. All three lectures are on Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. in the Knowles Hall Lounge at SUNY Potsdam. All are free, and the public is invited to attend.

The lectures cover:

• Feb. 23, "Wine, Scandal and Blasphemy: Socrates in Historical Context": In this multidisciplinary presentation, Rinella will examine the technology of ancient wine-making and the cultural function of the Greek dinner party or symposium, and how the latter interacted with the political life of ancient Athens. In particular, he will examine the disastrous scandal of 415 BCE, an event that involved several of Socrates' oligarchic and pro-Spartan associates. He will look at sources that suggest the nature of the impiety Socrates may have been suspected of, leading to the explicit charges that resulted in his trial and execution. The lecture will conclude with a discussion of how Plato may be read as rehabilitating Socrates' piety and politics.
• March 22, "Reason's Black Magic: 'The Problem of Socrates' in Nietzsche, Derrida and Foucault": Philosophy has returned to the figure of Socrates again and again as a turning point in the history of Western thought. But what sort of turning point? We know virtually nothing about the historical Socrates. He left us no writings of his own. What did Socrates, or at any rate Plato's literary depiction of Socrates, depart from and where was Plato determined to go? In a wide-ranging discussion that incorporates both traditional philosophic themes with ancient views of medicine, magic and rhetoric, Rinella will examine the critique of Plato's Socrates, as put forward by Nietzsche in the late 19th century, and Derrida and Foucault a century later.
• April 19, "The Genealogy of Drug Ethics: From Plato to the Postmodern": The experience of eating, drinking and sex has occupied a place in the ethical thought of the West since its earliest days. Equally important, but less commonly acknowledged, are the place of drugs, broadly defined, in that same history. Difficulties with drugs are found in ancient texts ranging from Homer to Plato, and continue in different forms and with different proposed solutions, right up to the present. Rinella will argue that today's approach to drug ethics, influenced by the Industrial Revolution on the one hand and the supplanting of a religious framework for ethics by a medico-scientific/juridical framework on the other, is increasingly obsolete and demands replacement.

Michael A. Rinella received his doctorate in 1997 from the University at Albany. His dissertation examined the theme of ecstasy in Plato's moral psychology. Since 1999, he has been an editor at the State University of New York Press, acquiring scholarly and trade market manuscripts, primarily in political science, along with other fields in the social sciences and humanities such as ancient Greek and Roman philosophy and military history. In addition, he has also worked regularly as a political science adjunct both online and in the traditional classroom. His research areas include ancient Greek thought and contemporary drug ethics. His book, "Pharmakon: Plato, Drug Culture and Identity in Ancient Athens," was published by Lexington Books in 2010.

The National Endowment for the Humanities is an independent grant-making agency of the United States government, dedicated to supporting research, education and preservation, and public programs in the humanities.

To learn more about SUNY Potsdam's Department of Philosophy, visit www.potsdam.edu/academics/AAS/Phil.

Founded in 1816, and located on the outskirts of the beautiful Adirondack Park, The State University of New York at Potsdam is one of America's first 50 colleges. SUNY Potsdam currently enrolls approximately 4,350 undergraduate and graduate students. Home to the world-renowned Crane School of Music, SUNY Potsdam is known for its handcrafted education, challenging liberal arts and sciences core, excellence in teacher training and leadership in the performing and visual arts.

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