Faculty Emeriti Lecture Series

Reason and Wonder: The Book a JMU Honors Course Launched

Dr. C. David Pruett, Professor Emertius of Mathematics 

Wednesday, May 30, 2018
4:00 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.
JMU Ice House, 127 W. Bruce St, Harrisonburg 
Rm 117

“I think I have a book in me and that teaching this course will help me write it.” Thus began Honors 200D in January 1999.  Thirteen long years later, Reason and Wonder: A Copernican Revolution in Science and Spirit was published by Praeger (2012). The course initially floated under the unwieldy title “From Black Elk to Black Holes: Shaping a Myth for a New Millennium,” and has been offered seven times in various incarnations through spring 2017. In 2002 it received a Templeton Foundation “science-religion” course award, but it is better understood as a ‘science-mythology’ dialogue.” The late eco-theologian Thomas Berry observed, “We are in trouble just now because we do not have a good story…We are between stories.” Reason and Wonder is an attempt at collective mythmaking: at weaving together a compelling “new story” that is faithful both to the revelations of modern science and to the wisdom of time-honored spiritual traditions. Refreshments will be served.

Co-sponsored by the JMU Faculty Emeriti Association and JMU Outreach & Engagement.

The Faculty Emeriti Lecture Series is a free event, open to all members of the JMU and Harrisonburg community.