Landscape and Divinity Spoken in the Same Breath

From where can we draw inspiration to cultivate an intimate sensibility into the spiritual nature of landscape, the foundation for designing gardens for meditation and healing? Through various spiritual lenses, this inquiry penetrates fundamental grounds for our subtle relationship with landscape. Beginning with excerpts of a private audience with His Holiness the Dalai Lama at Middlebury College, at which I present my proposed plans and designs for Milarepa Center in Barnet, Vermont, this inquiry looks into the profound links between spiritual inquiry and the practice of designing gardens, making design of landscape integral to a spiritual path, and the profound relationship between Landscape and Divinity. It is presented in three parts: (1) spiritual inspiration; (2) setting terms on the table; and (3) expressions of sacred landscape.

The Ramifications of Telling Charles Murray to Shut Up

In our academic institutions, we are encouraged to debate one another and create productive discourse as a means for solving our problems. But is this an effective tool settling differences if the argument is whether or not you should be considered an equal human being? In cases like these, Iris Marion Young recommends activism as a way to bring attention to ideas that can actually prevent productive discourse. However, is it possible for activism to go “too far” thus shutting down discourse altogether? Applying Young’s theory, this paper will explore the roles of both activism and deliberation in the context of a protest at Middlebury College.

Una académica comprometida con el estudio de la historia del pensamiento iuspolítico alemán y el trabajo de Hans Kelsen: una aproximación a la apasionante obra de Sara Lagi

Sara Lagi obtuvo el grado de doctora en Historia del Pensamiento Político Europeo por la Universidad de Perugia en el año 2005. Actualmente es catedrática de la Universidad de Turín; también ha sido docente en la Universidad de Florencia (2007-2009), Middlebury College, Smith College y Fashion Institute of Technology (2005-2014). A lo largo de su prolífica trayectoria docente, Sara Lagi ha publicado un gran número de artículos y libros, entre los que destacan: “Pensare la democracia: Hans Kelsen e Hermann Heller a confronto”; “Kelsen e la Corte costituzionale austriaca: un percorso storico-politico (1918-1920)”; “Hans Kelsen, un pensatore democrático tra Europa e America (1920-1955)”; Il Pensiero político di Hans Kelsen (1911-1920). Le origini di Essenza e valore della democracia; “Georg Jellinek storico del pensiero politico (1883-1905)”; “Adolf Fischer e Karl Renner: la questione nazionale austriaca (1869-1917)”; “The formation of a liberal thinker: Georg Jellinek and his early writings”; “Hans Kelsen and the Austrian Constitutional Court (1918-1929)”; “Karl Renner: Staat und Nation”; “Hans Kelsen: pensador político”; “Territorio y pueblo en Hans Kelsen”.

Book Reviews

David Colander of Middlebury College reviews “Narrative Economics: How Stories Go Viral and Drive Major Economic Events,” by Robert J. Shiller. The Econlit abstract of this book begins: “Introduces “narrative economics,” highlighting the contagion and epidemics of narratives, their impact on the economy, and prevalent economic narratives.”.

Louise McNeill

Louise McNeill was born in Pocahontas County, West Virginia, on the farm where her family had lived since 1769. After studying at Middlebury College with Robert Frost and attending the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, McNeill received her doctorate from West Virginia University. During her thirty-year tenure as a professor of English and history, she also became an active opponent of strip mining and participated in the first Earth Day in 1970. Governor Jay Rockefeller appointed McNeill West Virginia’s poet laureate in 1979, a position that she held until her death in 1993....

Looking for Middle Ground at Middlebury College

This article examines the pedagogical response of English and writing faculty to a controversy that took place at their liberal arts college. Findings from faculty interviews highlight a number of ways that instructors might engage local controversies, in keeping with their curricular goals and commitments to pedagogical transparency.

Encountering Cavell

I first came across Stanley Cavell’s writing in the fall of 1974 in a senior seminar in the philosophy of mind at Middlebury College, co-taught by Stanley Bates and Timothy Gould. We spent most of the term reading Gilbert Ryle’s The Concept of Mind and P. F. Strawson’s Individuals—books that at that time, before the widespread reception of Kripke’s Naming and Necessity, Putnam-style functionalism, and central state identity theory, still counted as contemporary philosophy of mind. It was then felt by Bates and Gould, I conjecture, that something more lively and something having to do with subjectivity might be order. Both of them had been Ph.D. students with Cavell at Harvard, and so we turned to “Knowing and Acknowledging.”

Navigating Campus Controversies: Seeking Truth, Respecting Speech, and Cultivating Intellectual Fairness in Higher Education

In this essay, Rebecca M. Taylor and Ashley Floyd Kuntz explore the higher education aims of advancing truth, respecting speech, and fostering inclusive learning environments in the context of controversial invited speakers on college campuses. They consider the case of Charles Murray's visit to Middlebury College in 2017. They argue that intellectual fairness—which centers the importance of pursuing truth, combating bias, and supporting the intellectual development of members of the academic community—is an appropriate guiding virtue when navigating the intellectual and democratic aims of higher education. They look to advance intellectual fairness as a normative framework for understanding the aims and responsibilities of higher education institutions.