hello folks, this is actually not about  online courses per se, but since it is so hard to know just how the word has or has not gotten out about public lectures on campus, I wanted to let you all know about a lecture tonight, Thursday, by Leonard Shlain.  
 
his book, The Alphabet Versus The Goddess, is one of the most interesting overviews of the whole orality-writing field that I have read. so if you have any interest at all in this topic (I do! in fact, I obsess about it...), then I can recommend the lecture highly. and the book is a wonderful read - so, if you have actually never read anything on orality v. writing, I think it is probably one of the very best books you could choose to start with.  I think there is a lot here for us to ponder as folks teaching online, since written communication (and the absence of oral speech) is a central challenge in how we do our work.
 
:)
 
Laura
 
 
-----Original Message-----
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Dougherty, Robert J. [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, March 01, 2006 1:43 PM
Subject: Feaver-MacMinn Public Lecture - The Alphabet vs. The Goddess: The Conflict between Word and Image

The College of Liberal Studies is pleased to invite your faculty, staff and students to a public lecture featuring visiting professor Leonard Shlain at the University ofOklahoma’s Norman campus. This lecture is free to the public. There will be a book signing after the lecture.

Thursday, March 2, 2006

Public Lecture

“The Alphabet vs. the Goddess: The Conflict between Word and Image”

Leonard Shlain, M.D.

Oklahoma Memorial Union

Meacham Auditorium

7:30 p.m.

Leonard Shlain, M.D. is the Chairman of Laparoscopic surgery at the California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco and is an Associate Professor of Surgery at UCSF. He is also the author of three critically acclaimed, national bestselling, award-winning books. Dr. Shlain has won several literary awards for his visionary work and also holds several patents on innovative surgical devices. Dr. Shlain is presently working on a book entitled “Leonardo’s Brain: The Left/Right Roots of Creativity.”

Dr. Shlain’s public lecture entitled “The Alphabet vs. The Goddess: The Conflict between Word and Image” will be held in the Oklahoma Memorial Union’s Meacham Auditorium on Thursday, March 2, at 7:30 p.m. In this presentation, Dr. Shlain will show why pre-literate cultures were principally informed by holistic, right-brain modes that venerated the Goddess, feminine values and images. Writing, particularly alphabets, drove cultures toward linear left-brain thinking. This shift upset the balance between men and women, initiating the decline of the feminine and also ushering in the reign of patriarchy and misogyny. Examining the cultures of the Israelites, Greeks, Christian and Muslims, he reinterprets many myths and parables in light of his theory. Shlain traces the effect of literacy on the Dark Ages, Mary, Gutenberg, the Reformation, and the Witchcraze.

More detailed information on this year’s Feaver-MacMinn Public Lecture and Dr. Shlain can be found at www.ou.edu/cls.

Please feel free to forward this email or distribute the attached flyer to your faculty, staff and students.

Sincerely,

Trent

Trent E. Gabert, Ph.D.

Associate Dean, College of Liberal Studies

Chair of the Executive Committee

     Brock International Prize in Education

Professor of Health and Sport Sciences

TEG/kds