SOPHIA is holding our first online symposium, a conversational meeting open to all, on the subject of “trigger warnings,” the act of alerting students in advance about potentially offensive messages or images to be covered in an educational setting. Controversy arose in part in reaction to a letter from the Dean of Students at the University of Chicago, which you can find here, and which we ask that each participant in our conversation read prior to joining us (1 page).

Title: Trigger Warnings: Offense, Respect, and Freedom [Online Video Symposium]

Day and time: Wednesday, 10/19/16 from 2:00-3:30 p.m. Eastern.

Place: Online. In advance, click this link to download a small tool that will enable participation. If you have used Zoom online video conferencing before, you may not need to download the little app.

SPECIAL NOTE: This conversational meeting will be recorded and then posted on YouTube. You can participate either with video and audio or you can just watch the discussion and comment in the platform’s chat section. Those unable to participate at the time of the discussion can watch the video later on YouTube.

Facilitators:

Dr. Bertha Manninen, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Arizona State University

and

Dr. Shane Courtland, Managing Director of the Center for Free Enterprise at West Virginia University.

In addition,

Dr. Eric Thomas Weber, Executive Director of SOPHIA, will serve as the moderator of our online forum.

And featuring a special Guest:

We are also very fortunate to have a special guest joining us from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE):

Ari Cohn, J.D., Senior Program Officer for Legal and Public Advocacy for F.I.R.E.

We welcome and invite comments and questions in advance of the symposium. Please write to us at philosophersinamerica@gmail.com, post a comment on our Facebook page, or Tweet to us @SOPHIAchirp.

Finally, you can also call us and leave us a voicemail with a comment or question, by calling: 859.257.1849. Please introduce yourself, tell us where you’re from, and please limit your message length to 1 minute or less.