After an intense first two days, I took things a bit easy today by attending sessions during the second half of the day.
I was very excited to attend Partha Mitter's session on his seminal text Much Maligned Monsters. Unfortunately, he was not a very inspiring speaker, so I left the session. However, I do plan to read his book as it challenges the western way of looking at Indian art.
The highlight of my day was definitely, Reza Aslan's session on his book Zealot: Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth along with AN Wilson. Aslan began by stating that there is a huge chasm between the Christ of faith and the Jesus of history. Regarding the Jesus of history, there is consensus on only three things about him:
He was a Jew
He lived in the First half of the first century
He launched a movement of the Jews
However, given that the world of the Jews was well documented by the Romans we can make certain inferences about him. In Aslan's words we can make, "educated speculation based on what we know of the world we live in".
He mentioned that, in his opinion, Jesus' lost years were not spent far away but rather spent in rebuilding a town close to Nazareth. AN Wilson disagreed with Aslan on this point saying that this theory of Aslan's was 'fantasy'.
Aslan then went to explain how Jesus was influenced by the ideas of zealotry, in particular the overthrow of Roman Rule.
What made this session particularly enjoyable apart from Aslan's engaging talk was that even though Alan and Wilson disagreed, they were so civilised about the whole matter and their arguments to a person who did not speak English would have seemed to be friendly banter.
Given that I had signed up for Sandel's MOOC on justice, attending his session was a no-brainer. My immediate reaction to his session was that he is a gifted and skilled teacher. I was super impressed by the level of his research to customise his 'lecture' to the Indian scenario because of which he had terms like All India Rank, figures such as reservation quotas and Sachin
Tendulkar's yearly income on the tips of his fingertips. Truly the mark of a great teacher is the level of his/her preparedness. Sandel deployed the Socratic method throughout his session, questioning members of the audience, and asking the brave ones to counter the other's argument. He wrapped up the session, stating that public discourse helped develop good civic habits such as listening to others even if you don't agree with their point of view.
I was very excited to attend Partha Mitter's session on his seminal text Much Maligned Monsters. Unfortunately, he was not a very inspiring speaker, so I left the session. However, I do plan to read his book as it challenges the western way of looking at Indian art.
The highlight of my day was definitely, Reza Aslan's session on his book Zealot: Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth along with AN Wilson. Aslan began by stating that there is a huge chasm between the Christ of faith and the Jesus of history. Regarding the Jesus of history, there is consensus on only three things about him:
He was a Jew
He lived in the First half of the first century
He launched a movement of the Jews
However, given that the world of the Jews was well documented by the Romans we can make certain inferences about him. In Aslan's words we can make, "educated speculation based on what we know of the world we live in".
He mentioned that, in his opinion, Jesus' lost years were not spent far away but rather spent in rebuilding a town close to Nazareth. AN Wilson disagreed with Aslan on this point saying that this theory of Aslan's was 'fantasy'.
Aslan then went to explain how Jesus was influenced by the ideas of zealotry, in particular the overthrow of Roman Rule.
What made this session particularly enjoyable apart from Aslan's engaging talk was that even though Alan and Wilson disagreed, they were so civilised about the whole matter and their arguments to a person who did not speak English would have seemed to be friendly banter.
Given that I had signed up for Sandel's MOOC on justice, attending his session was a no-brainer. My immediate reaction to his session was that he is a gifted and skilled teacher. I was super impressed by the level of his research to customise his 'lecture' to the Indian scenario because of which he had terms like All India Rank, figures such as reservation quotas and Sachin
Tendulkar's yearly income on the tips of his fingertips. Truly the mark of a great teacher is the level of his/her preparedness. Sandel deployed the Socratic method throughout his session, questioning members of the audience, and asking the brave ones to counter the other's argument. He wrapped up the session, stating that public discourse helped develop good civic habits such as listening to others even if you don't agree with their point of view.
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