Spring 2024 Theme:

Dimensions of the Self:

The Individual, The Communal, and The Cosmic

What is a “self”? Is it something like a self-contained atom randomly bouncing off other self-contained atoms as it moves aimlessly in a cold, purposeless, meaningless cosmos? Such a conception of the “self” puts the individual into a watertight compartment isolated from both the larger human community and the natural, cosmic environment. Or is the “self” something like a seed, seeking out and establishing relationships with diverse sources of nutrition, light, and water in its environment—so that that it can experience and contribute to Life of the cosmos? This conception of the “self” conceives the identity of the individual as an unfolding set of relationships with the social and natural (ultimately cosmic) environment. As abstract and theoretical as these questions and issues may sound, the way they are answered (or not) directly impacts all scientific inquiry, understanding and knowledge. The Two Cultures Initiative will organize a series of lectures in the Spring semester to explore the way the contrasting conceptions of the “self” shape the understanding and study of:

  1. The natural environment and the place of the human being in modern ecology
  2. Physical and mental health by modern medicine
  3. Society, law, and justice by modern legal theory
  4. Underserved reward and unjust suffering in modern philosophical thought

Planned Lectures

Body, Water & Experience:
Towards a Pragmatic Inquiry into the Environmental Self

Speaker: Dr. James L. Wescoat Jr.

Dr. James L. Wescoat Jr. is an emeritus professor of landscape architecture and geography in the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was also a co-director of the Norman B. Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism. He conducts research on the historical geography of water in South Asia, from the scale of gardens to cities, regions, and river basins. He is the author of books and articles on Mughal gardens and modern water management in northern India and Pakistan. James taught courses on “Islamic Architecture and the Environment,” “Islamic Gardens and Geographies,” “Water in Planning, Policy, and Design,” “Disaster-Resilient Design,” and various landscape and urbanism workshops in India and the U.S.

Between Hope and Despair:
Significance of Art in Pathology for the Biological Self

Speaker: Dr. Azra Raza

Dr. Azra Raza was born in Karachi, Pakistan and became interested in biology from a very early age. She then went to medical school in order to study biological sciences at Dow Medical College. She is currently a Professor of Medicine and Director of the Myelodysplastic Syndrome (MDS) Center at Columbia University. Raza's 2009 book “Ghalib: Epistemologies of Elegance,” co-authored with Sara Suleri Goodyear, analyzed the work of the Urdu poet Ghalib and included translations of Ghalib's Ghazals that the co-authors performed themselves.

The Psychological Self:
Mental Health and the Inner World of the Individual

Speaker: Dr. Ali Madeeh Hashmi

Dr. Ali Madeeh Hashmi is a psychiatrist, teacher, writer, and translator. He is currently tenured professor and Chairman, Department of Psychiatry, King Edward Medical University and also holds the position of Professor of Psychiatry at Punjab Institute of Mental Health, Pakistan’s largest psychiatric hospital. After graduation from King Edward Medical College in Lahore, he completed his psychiatric training at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. He is a Diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and following completion of his psychiatry training, he also served for 12 years as staff psychiatrist and medical director at Mid-South Health Systems, the largest community mental health system in the state of Arkansas. Dr Hashmi is the author of four books on poetry and literature, including the first (and only) biography of his grandfather, the celebrated poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz. The Urdu version was recently published in Lahore. His essays about mental health, literature, poetry, and history have been published in scientific journals, magazines, newspapers and literary journals in Pakistan, India, and the US.

The Communal Self:
Between Laws, Norms, and Culture

Speaker: Justice (retd.) Jawwad S. Khawaja

Mr. Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja was born on 10th September 1950 in Wazirabad, District Gujranwala. He did his graduation in Arts in the year 1971 from FC College, Lahore and his LL.B from the Punjab University Law College, Lahore, in 1973. He then obtained an LL.M. degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 1975. Thereafter, he was enrolled as an Advocate of the High Court in 1975 and as an Advocate of the Supreme Court in 1985. He remained in legal practice until his appointment as a judge of the Lahore High Court on 21st April 1999. He resigned from his post on 19th March 2007. He then remained a Professor of Law at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) and headed the Department of Law and Policy until his appointment as a judge of the Supreme Court of Pakistan on 5th June 2009.

The Modern Self:
Between "Seven Types of Atheism"
اور
"اک گورکھ دھندا"

Speaker: Dr. Basit Bilal Koshul

Dr. Basit Bilal Koshul is a Professor in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). He joined LUMS in 2006 after teaching at Concordia College (Moorehead, MN) for four years. He earned his first PhD in 2003 from Drew University in Religion and Society (specializing in the Sociology of Religion) and the second in 2011 from the University of Virginia in Religious Studies (specializing in Theology, Ethics, Culture and Scriptural Reasoning). His areas of research include the philosophy of science, sociology of culture, philosophy of religion, philosophical theology and the contemporary Islam-West encounter. He is especially interested in integrating the insights of Muhammad Iqbal, Charles Peirce, and Max Weber.