Mackay Lecture

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The Kathryn Fraser Mackay Memorial Lecture was created by Mr. & Mrs. Donald Mackay to support a lectureship to honor the memory of Kathryn Fraser Mackay.  The departments of Philosophy and Religious Studies alternate in organizing this lecture.


"Kathryn Fraser Mackay died in an aircraft accident in 1979, little more than two years after her graduation from St. Lawrence University as a Bachelor of Arts cum laude, with Honors in Philosophy. She was a young woman with a great gift for friendship -- companionable, affectionate, and generous. Bright and full of courage, Kathy waged an intellectual and spiritual battle to resolve for herself fundamental questions in philosophy and religion. This campus was where she lived the largest part of her short adult life, and this community of the young is where her memorial most fittingly belongs."

PAST MACKAY LECTURES
  • 1984-5:  Hilary Putnam:  “Faith, Fact, and Fiction”
  • 1985-6:  Diana L. Eck:  “The Manyness of God”
  • 1986-7:  Daniel Dennett:  “Moral Thinking Under Time Pressure”
  • 1988-9:  Alasdair MacIntyre:  “The Objectivity of Good”
  • 1989-90:  Jaroslav Pelikan:  “Philosophia as Woman:  The Allegorical Vision of Boethius”
  • 1990-1:  Martha Nussbaum:  “Aristotle on Human Nature and the Foundation of Ethics”
  • 1991-2:  Wendy Doniger:  “When God has Lipstick on His Collar:  Theological Implications of Divine Adultery”
  • 1992-3:  William Bennett
  • 1993-4:  Phyllis Trible:  “A Feminist Reads the Bible”
  • 1994-5:  Thomas Nagel:  “Relativism and Reason”
  • 1995-6:  Elie Wiesel
  • 1998-9:  Amartya Sen:  "Environmental Valuation and Social Ethics"
  • 2000-1:  Bas C. van Fraassen:  “Scientific Revolution/Conversion as a Philosophical Problem”
  • 2000-1:  Helen Longino:  "Individualism & Folk Psychology in the Scientific Study of Aggression”
  • 2001-2:  Panel: Charlotte Fonrobert, Jacqueline Armijo-Hussein, Mary Hunt, Hyun Kyung Chung:  Panel on "Women, God, Power: Crossing Boundaries."  Fonrobert:  "When Women (do not) Walk in the Ways of their Fathers: Jewish Tradition and Feminist Innovation," Armijo-Hussein:  "Educate a Woman, Educate a Nation," Hunt:  "Catholic Feminism: Hybridity or Contradiction?"  Chung:  "Salimist Manifesto: A Korean Ecofeminist Spirituality."
  • 2002-3:  Edouard Glissant:  “When A Voice is Missing in the World”
  • 2003-4:  Mark Salzman
  • 2004-5:  Elizabeth Lloyd:  “The Case of the Female Orgasm: Bias in the Science of Evolution"
  • 2005-6:  Rev. Richard Gilbert:  "Through the Eye of a Needle: Is Economic Justice an Oxymoron?"
  • 2006-7:  Dale Jamieson:  "The Moral and Political Challenges of Climate Change"
  • 2007-8:  Christopher Hitchens:  “God is Not Great”
  • 2008-9:  Linda Alcoff:  "Can Whites be a Part of the Rainbow?"
  • 2012-13: Speaker Series featuring: Ann Cahill, "Recognition, Desire and Unjust Sex," Shannon Mussett, "The Origins of Patriarchy in The Second Sex" and John Lysaker, "We Are Not Ourselves: an Emersonian Humanities."
  • 2014-15: Tom Kasulis, "From Detachment to Engagement: A Challenge to How We Think, Learn, and Understand"
  • 2016-17: Angela Davis, "Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Histories and Current Realities"
  • 2018-19: Lisa Guenther, "No Prisons on Stolen Land: Abolition and Decolonization as Interconnected Struggles"
  • 2020-21: Cailin O'Connor, "The Misinformation Age"
  • 2022-23: Dr. Kate Manne, “Demoralizing Fatness”