Video / Audio  Heyman Center For Humanities

Celebrating Recent Work by Rebecca Woods, Matthew Jones, and William Deringer

Richard Prum, author of The Evolution of Beauty discusses his book, its implications and its problems, with the philosopher Philip Kitcher, the historian of science Deborah R. Coen, and the literary scholar George Levine. Prum's book, listed by the New York Times as one of the best of 2017, attempts to restore Darwin's theory of sexual selection, not only explaining through Prum's own original work in ornithology how it works, but also making a powerful case for the explanatory inadequacy of the popular "Darwinian" adaptationist paradigm in evolutionary biology. Sexual selection, particularly mate choice, Prum argues, accounts not only for the gorgeous plumage of male birds, but also for the splitting of humans from their simian cousins. Working independently of and often in conflict with natural selection, sexual selection leads us to a new definition and understanding of aesthetics. Perhaps even more strikingly, it leads Prum to a very strong feminist theory, with intellectually revolutionary implications.

New Books in the Arts and Sciences at Columbia University: a podcast featuring audio from the New Books Series at Columbia University and interviews with the speakers and authors. This podcast features A Book of Conquest: The Chachnama and Muslim Origins in South Asia by Manan Ahmed.

New Books in the Arts and Sciences at Columbia University: a podcast featuring audio from the New Books Series at Columbia University and interviews with the speakers and authors. This podcast features Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society, 30th Anniversary Edition, with a New Afterword by Lila Abu-Lughod & Geontologies: A Requiem to Late Liberalism by Elizabeth Povinelli.  

New Books in the Arts and Sciences at Columbia University: a podcast featuring audio from the New Books Series at Columbia University and interviews with the speakers and authors. This podcast features Spirit in the Dark: A Religious History of Racial Aesthetics by Josef Sorett.

New Books in the Arts and Sciences at Columbia University: a podcast featuring audio from the New Books Series at Columbia University and interviews with the speakers and authors. This podcast features The Ink of the Scholars: Reflections on Philosophy in Africa by Souleymane Bachir Diagne.

New Books in the Arts and Sciences at Columbia University: a podcast featuring audio from the New Books Series at Columbia University and interviews with the speakers and authors. This podcast features Europe’s Functional Constitution: A Theory of Constitutionalism beyond the State by Turkuler Isiksel.

New Books in the Arts and Sciences at Columbia University: a podcast featuring audio from the New Books Series at Columbia University and interviews with the speakers and authors. This podcast features The Seasons Alter by Philip Kitcher and Evelyn Fox Keller.