Key Conversations with Phi Beta Kappa

For Professor Julia Clarke, paleontology is more than just a passion for exploration and discovery — it’s a shared, global dialogue that has the ability to permeate cultural differences. In this episode, Dr. Clarke recounts how her early interest in the history and philosophy of science merged with her desire to have a practice deeply woven into narrative. As a professor and researcher, she prioritizes the questions that guide a discipline into a new area, calling it “a fundamental part of science”. Giving both in-depth and thought inspiring lectures such as “The Secret Lives of Dinosaurs,” Dr. Clarke dives into the origins that led her into the world of geobiology, the importance of staying curious and learning to communicate through the language of science.

Professor Emily Yeh is a Professor of Geography at the University of Colorado Boulder, where she researches the nature-society relationship in political, cultural and developmental relations in the mostly Tibetan parts of China.  Although she majored in electrical engineering and computer science at MIT, while interning in China, she realized that her understanding of sustainable development needed to be further explored.  Her first visit to Tibet proved to be life changing, and Yeh has committed her career to advocating for environmental justice for the Tibetan people. In this conversation, Professor Yeh discusses her climate justice work for Tibetan herders, her experience at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, and how climate change is impacting Tibetans’ ability to keep their culture alive. 

Growing up in a tight-knit African-American community in Evansville, Indiana, Dr. Talitha Washington quickly understood the role that her race and racism would play in her life—always choosing to rise above it all. Amongst her Black cohort at Spelman College, Dr. Washington felt she was finally able to learn freely, and without the pressure of being the only Black student in the class. The mathematics scholar is now the Director of the Atlanta University Center (AUC) Data Science Initiative where she works with HBCUs to increase the number of minorities earning data science credentials and further develop science that advances social justice. Throughout her career as a Ph. D mathematician, she’s actively challenging the assumptions of who can succeed in mathematics, and how her perseverance in the field is shaping who can and should be contributing to science. 

This special episode of Key Conversations is joined by Dr. Kristie Dotson, the University Diversity and Social Transformation Professor at the University of Michigan, and Dr. Susanna Siegel, the Edgar Pierce Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University. Each year, the Lebowitz Prize is presented to a pair of philosophers who hold contrasting views of an important philosophical question that is of current interest both to the field and to an educated public audience. The professors discuss the topic for the 2023 Lebowitz Prize, which is the "Norms of Attention”.

Professor Corey D. B. Walker is the Dean of the Wake Forest University School of Divinity, Wake Forest Professor of the Humanities, and Director of the Program in African American Studies.  He pursued his education at two HBCUs and two of the oldest schools in America, and talks about how each of these formations gave him the ability to develop into the intellectual he is today.  As an expert in the areas of African American philosophy, critical theory, ethics and religion, Professor Walker discusses the overlap between theology and democracy, and explores what it means to be human in today’s society.

Professor Emily Yeh is a Professor of Geography at the University of Colorado Boulder, where she researches the nature-society relationship in political, cultural and developmental relations in the mostly Tibetan parts of China.  Although she majored in electrical engineering and computer science at MIT, while interning in China, she realized that her understanding of sustainable development needed to be further explored.  Her first visit to Tibet proved to be life changing, and Yeh has committed her career to advocating for environmental justice for the Tibetan people. In this conversation, Professor Yeh discusses her climate justice work for Tibetan herders, her experience at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, and how climate change is impacting Tibetans’ ability to keep their culture alive. 

The Phi Beta Kappa Book Awards are presented annually to three outstanding scholarly books published in the United States.  The 2023 winners are Dennis Tyler for his book Disabilities of the Color Line: Redressing Antiblackness from Slavery to the Present; Jennifer Raff for her book Origin: A Genetic History of the Americas; and Deborah Cohen for her book Last Call at the Hotel Imperial: The Reporters Who Took On a World at War.  This year, the Book Awards Dinner was held in person in Washington, D.C. in November 2023, where the three scholars discussed the impetus behind their books and the motives that keep them sleepless—and engaged—in liberal arts and sciences. 

Scholar and author Cathleen Kaveny focuses on the relationship of law, religion, and morality.  As the Darald and Juliet Libby Millennium Professor at Boston College, she has dual appointments in both the Theology Department and the Law School—the first to hold the joint appointment. Kaveny has devoted her career to exploring the connection between law and theology and explores the use of prophetic language and rhetoric in the past, and how we use it in today's society.  In this important conversation, Professor Kaveny breaks down the polarizing sides of cancel culture, the benefits of being in the muddled middle and how nostalgia can be dangerous for society.