Thinking Out
of the Lunchbox
Fall 2009
November 4, 2009
“A People’s Past Continues to Be Living History”
Reverend James Lawson
Distinguished University Professor
The Reverend James Lawson’s career in ministry and nonviolent activism began at Vanderbilt Divinity School, from which he was famously expelled in 1960 for his activism in desegregating the lunch counters of downtown Nashville.
Before becoming a leader in the civil rights movement, Reverend Lawson studied Gandhi’s teachings in India with a depth of understanding that would lead Martin Luther King, Jr., to deem Reverend Lawson “the leading nonviolence theorist in the world."
Watch streaming video of Outside of the Lunch Box discussion
October 7, 2009
“Air and Dreams”
Marilyn Murphy
Professor of Art
Artists continue to find inspiration in the thoughts of French philosopher Gaston Bachelard, whose books Air and Dreams and The Poetics of Space encourage different ways of finding mystery in the everyday world.
But is Bachelard's work from the mid-twentieth century influential? Or has he simply recognized important metaphors that have been present in art since the Surrealists started to mine their dream worlds in the 1920s?
The lecture will include the work of several contemporary Nashville artists with national reputations that, in part, relate to Bachelard’s work.
Watch streaming video of Outside of the Lunch Box discussion