Harvard's Jonathan Schofer to speak on ethics

The religious studies program in Virginia Tech's Department of Interdisciplinary Studies is bringing Professor Jonathan Schofer, of the Harvard Divinity School, to campus April 17 and 18 as the 2006-07 Hammond Lecturer in Religious Ethics in Society.

Schofer will deliver his keynote address titled "Stewardship or Vulnerability? Ancient Jewish Rainmaking and the Foundations of Environmental Ethics" on Tuesday, April 17 at 7 p.m. in Colonial Hall at Squires Student Center. On Wednesday, April 18, from noon-1:15 p.m. in the Black Cultural Center at Squires Student Center, Shofer will participate in an interdisciplinary seminar entitled “Confronting Morality: Death and Life in Rabbinic Ethics." Both events are free and open to the public.

Schofer joined the Harvard Divinity School faculty in January 2006 as assistant professor of comparative ethics, after being on the faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 2000 through 2005. His interests center on descriptive, comparative, and constructive studies of ethics. In particular, he studies the ethics of virtue and character: ways that different individuals and groups understand the nature of the self, ideals for living a good life, and especially how one is to transform one's self to attain those ideals (spiritual exercises, disciplinary practices, and more).

This event is sponsored by the Religious Studies Program and the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies and is also part of Jewish Awareness Month.