Charles Anderson, Professor of Rhetoric and Writing, University of Arkansas
Co-editor of Writing and Healing: Toward an Informed Practice (Refiguring English Studies), and Special Issue Editor of Literature and Medicine vol 19, no. 1 (2000), "Writing and Healing".

 

Jerome Bruner, University Professor, New York University School of Law
Jerome Bruner, a native New Yorker, is University Professor at New York University, where he teaches at the School of Law. He received a doctorate in psychology from Harvard in 1941, where he taught until 1970 when he became Watts Professor at Oxford. His principal interest centers on how culture shapes mind, and his most recent book, Making Stories: Law, Literature, Life (2002), deals with the narrative construction of "reality." He has been awarded honorary doctorates by Yale, Harvard, and the Sorbonne, among others, and received the International Balzan Prize in 1987.

 

Rita Charon, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University
Rita Charon, MD, PhD is a general internist and Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University. Dr. Charon graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1978, trained in internal medicine at the Residency Program in Social Medicine at Montefiore Hospital in New York, completed a year's fellowship in general internal medicine at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University in 1982, and has practiced general internal medicine since 1981 at Columbia. She completed the Ph.D. in English at Columbia University in 1999, having written her dissertation on the use of literary methods in understanding the texts and the works of medicine.

Involved in the field of Literatuure and Medicine since 1982, Dr. Charon has contributed to the growth of the field conceptually and concretely. She has written and lectured extensively on literature's salience to medical practice as well as on the the doctor-patient relationship, empathy in medicine, narrative competence, narrative ethics, and the late novels of Henry James. Dr. Charon's research has focused on communications between doctors and patients, seeking ways to improve the ability of doctors to understand what their patients go through. She inaugurated the Program in Humanities and Medicine at Columbia in 1996 to increase Columbia's effectiveness in relating the humanities to medicine. She directs medical education programs at Columbia in medical interviewing and medical humanities and conducts outcomes research to document the effectiveness of training programs in humanities and medicine.

 

Ruth Fischbach, Professor of Bioethics in Psychiatry, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons
Ruth Fischbach was born in Manhattan and educated at Mount Holyoke, Cornell University-New York Hospital School of Nursing (B.S., R.N.), Boston University (M.S., Ph.D.), and Washington University (M.P.E.). She has had a rich and varied career including nursing in India, researching nuclear waste exposure in Missouri, and advising at the National Institutes of Health. After earning her Ph.D. in medical sociology in 1983, she completed a postdoctoral fellowship in psychiatric epidemiology at Washington University School of Medicine. Her interests led her to bioethics, where she headed the ethics course and established the Humanities in Medicine Program at Washington University School of Medicine. Moving to Harvard Medical School in 1990, she completed studies on end-of-life care and communication between patients and health care professionals. She directed the Program in the Practice of Scientific Investigation, a course in the responsible conduct of research, offered an eclectic course on pain, and taught in courses designed to raise ethical dilemmas. Dr. Fischbach was awarded the Faculty Prize for Excellence in Teaching in 1995. Moving to the NIH in 1998, she served as Senior Advisor for Biomedical Ethics in the Office of the Director for Extramural Research developing federal policy to protect the rights and welfare of research participants.

 

Neil Gillman, Aaron Rabinowitz and Simon H. Rifkind Professor, Department of Jewish Philosophy, Jewish Theological Seminary of American
Books include Gabriel Marcel on Religious Knowledge (1980), Sacred Fragments: Recovering Theology for the Modern Jew (1990), Conservative Judaism: The New Century (1992), and The Death of Death: Resurrection and Immortality in Jewish Thought (1997).

 

Anne Hunsaker Hawkins, Professor, Department of Humanities, Penn State University
Author of Reconstructing Illness: Studies in Pathography and A Small, Good Thing: Stories of Children with HIV and Those Who Care for Them.

 

Roald Hoffmann, Frank H.T. Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters (Chemistry and Chem Bio), Cornell University, Spring 2001 Visiting Professor at Columbia
Roald Hoffman was born in 1937 in Zloczow, Poland. Having survived the war, he came to the the United States in 1949 and studied chemistry at Columbia University and Harvard University, receiving his Ph.D. in 1962. Since 1965 he has been affiliated with Cornell University and currently is the the Frank H.T. Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters. He has received many of the honors of his profession, including the 1981 Nobel Prize in Chemistry (shared with Kenichi Fukui). Dr. Hoffman also writes essays and poems. Two of his poetry collections, The Metamict State (1987) and Gaps and Verges (1990), have been published by the University Presses of Florida. Other publications include Chemistry Imagined, a unique art/science/literature collaboration of Roald Hoffman with artist Vivian Torrance; The Same and Not the Same, a thoughtful account of the dualities that lie under the surface of chemistry; and Old Wine, New Flasks: Reflections on Science and Jewish Tradition, written with Shira Leibowitz Schmidt.

 

David A. Hollinger, Chancellor's Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley
Hollinger's most recent books are Science, Jews, and Secular Culture (Princeton, 1996) and Postethnic America: Beyond Multiculturalism (Basic Books, 1995, revised edition, 2000). He is spending the academic year 2001-02 as Harmsworth Professor of American History at the University of Oxford

 

Piet Hut, Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies, Institute for Advanced Study
My main research interest concerns investigations of the structure of the world, from different points of view. My work as an astrophysicist aims at increasing our understanding of the physical world on the largest scales in time and space, by studying the history of the Universe. Interdisciplinary collaborations have allowed me to branch out from astrophysics per se to physics in general, as well as to geology and paleontology, where I found each discipline to rely on remarkably different views of the material world. In addition, my research in computer science showed yet other views of the world, when seen in the light of structures of information. And over the last several years I have attempted to summarize what I have learned in these various areas through some journeys into natural philosophy. Some of his publications include The Gravitational Million-Body Problem: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Star Cluster Dynamics (with Douglas Heggie); Astrophysical Supercomputing Using Particle Simulations (edited with Junichiro Makino); Dynamical Evolution of Star Clusters: Confrontation of Theory and Observations (edited with Junichiro Makino); Dynamics of Star Clusters (edited with Jeremy Goodman); and The Use of Supercomputers in Stellar Dynamics (edited with S. McMillan).

 

Darcy Brisbane Kelley, Professor of Bioloical Sciences, Columbia University
Dr. Kelley is a professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Columbia University. Her A.B. degree is from Barnard College and her Ph.D. is from The Rockefeller University, where she was also a postdoctoral fellow. She co-directed the Neural Systems and Behavior course at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and founded Columbia’s doctoral program in neurobiology and behavior. She is editor of the Journal of Neurobiology. Dr. Kelley’s honors include several distinguished lectureships, including the Forbes lectureship at the Grass Foundation and the Marine Biological Laboratory, special lecturer at the Society for Neuroscience, and plenary lecturer at the Society for Neuroethology. In addition, she has received the Jacobs Javits Neuroscience Investigator Award twice.

 

Philip Kitcher, Professor of Philosophy, Columbia University
Philip Kitcher is a Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University. Professor Kitcher taught at Vassar College, the University of Vermont, the University of Minnesota and UC San Diego before coming to Columbia. His teaching and research interests are in the the philosophy of science, with particulatr emphasis on general questions in the philosophy of science, problems in the the philosophy of biology, and issues in the philosophy of mathematics. He attempts to connect these questions with the central philosophical issues of epistemology, metaphysics and ethics, with the history of philosophy (especially the history of modern philosophy), and with the practice and findings of the scienes, past and present.

 

Joan Konner, Professor of Journalism and Dean Emerita, Graduate School of Journalism, Columbia University
B.A., Sarah Lawrence; M.S., Columbia. Reporter, editorial writer, and columnist, The Bergen (N.J.) Record; producer, reporter, host and editor, WNET/Thirteen; documentary and news producer, writer, director and program director, NBC News; executive producer for national public affairs programs, executive producer of Bill Moyers’ Journal, vice president, director of programming and executive producer for the Metropolitan Division and senior executive producer for national public affairs, WNET/Thirteen; president and executive producer, Public Affairs Television Inc., in partnership with Bill Moyers. Dean, Graduate School of Journalism, Columbia University. Publisher, Columbia Journalism Review. Awards include 13 Emmys from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences; Peabody Award, 1980); Alfred. I. duPont Award, 1989; three American Bar Association Awards; Outstanding Broadcast Journalism Educator, from the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, 1996.

 

Dominick LaCapra, Bowmar Professor of Humanistic Studies, Professor of History, Cornell University
Author of Emile Durkheim: Sociologist and Philosopher, A Preface to Sartre, Representing the Holocaust: History, Theory, Trauma and History and Memory After Auschwitz.

 

David Morris, University Professor, University of Virginia
Literary scholar, palliative care theorist, narrative ethicist, author of Culture of Pain and Illness and Culture in the Postmodern Age.

 

James Olney, Voorhies Professor of English, Louisiana State University
Autobiographical theorist, editor of Autobiography: Essays Theoretical and Critical, author of Metaphors of Self: The Meaning of Autobiography and Memory & Narrative: The Weave of Life-Writing.

 

Robert Pollack, Professor of Biological Sciences, and Chair, Center for the Study of Science and Religion, Columbia University
Robert Pollack is currently Professor of Biological Sciences, Lecturer in Psychiatry at the Center for Psycholannalytic Training and Research, and Director of the Center for the Study of Science and religion, at Columbia University.

Dr. Pollack is the author of more than a hundred research papers on the oncogenic phenotype of mammalian cells in culture, and has edited many books and reviews on aspects of molecular biology.

Since 1994 Dr, Pollack has concentrated his efforts on questions that lie at the margin of science and religion. His 1994 book, Signs of Life: The Language and meaning of DNA, received the Lionel Trilling Award, and has been translated into six languages. His second book, The Missing Moment: How the Unconscious Shapes Moden Science, was released by Houghton Mifflin in September 1999, and will appear in Japanese translation in 2000. His latest work, The Faith of Biology and the Biology of Faith: order Meaning and Free Will in Modern Science, will be publoished by Columbia University Press later this year, as the inaugural volume of a new series of books on Science and Religion.

He serves on the advisory boards f the John Templeton Foundation, California Newsreels, The Fred Friendly Seminars, the program in Religion and Ecology of the center for the Study of World religions at harvard University, and as a Senior Consultant for the Director, Program of Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He is a Fellow of the AAAS, and the World Economic forum in Davos; and a member of the American Psychoanalytic Association. He is a director and Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of AMBI Inc. (NASDAQ).

Dr. Pollack grew up in Brooklyn, attended public schools, and graduated from Columbia College with a major in physics in 1961. He holds a Ph.D. in biology from Brandeis University. he has been a research scientists at the Weizmann Institute and att Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, an assistant professor of Pathology at NYU medical Center and an associate professor of Microbiology at the State University of New York at Stony Book.

He has been a Professor of Biological Sciences at Columbia since 1978, and was a Dean of Columbia College from 1982-1989. He received the Alexander hamilton Medal from Columbia University, and has held a Guggenheim Fellowship. he has been a meber of the century Association since 1997.

Since 1998 Dr. Pollack has been the President of the Hillel of Columbia University and Barnard College, located in the new Robert K. Kraft Center for Jewish Student Life. Dr. Pollack's wife Amy is an artist; their daughter is a physician.

 

Wayne Proudfoot, Professor of Religion, Columbia University
Wayne Proudfoot is Professor of Religion at Columbia University, working chiefly in the philosophy of religion. His undergraduate degree was in physics from Yale, and he received a Master of Divinity, and PhD in the study of religion from Harvard. He has been at Columbia since 1972, teaching graduate and undergraduate courses in the philosophy of religion, modern European and American religious thought, and theories and methods for the study of religion.

Professor Proudfoot is the author of Religious Experience (University of California Press, 1985) and numerous articles in the philosophy of religion. He has been working on a book on Pragmatism and American Religious Thought, and has published articles on Jonathan Edwards, Charles Sanders Peirce, and William James. He has a continuing interest in the relationbetween science and religion, and was Director of a Conference on science and religion held at Columbia University's Arden House in January of 1990, funded by Laurence Rockefeller.

 

Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan, Professor of English, Hebrew University, Jerusalem
Narratologist, author of A Glance Beyond Doubt, Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics and The Context of Ambiguity.

 

Richard Rorty, Professor of Comparative Literature, Stanford University
Richard Rorty was educated at the University of Chicago and Yale, and has taught at Wellesley, Princeton, the University of Virginia. He is currently a professor of Comparative Literature at Stanford. He is the author of Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton, 1989); Contingency, Irony and Solidarity (Cambridge, 1989); and Achieving our Country (Harvard, 1997).

 

Allan Rosenfeld, MD, FACOG, Joseph L. Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University
Dr. Rosenfeld received a BA in biochemistry (cum laude) from Harvard University before attending medical school at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons. Dr. Rosenfeld completed residencies in both surgery and obstetrics/ynecology at Harvard Medical School, before embarking on an international career in medicine and public health that have taken him to Korea, Nigeria, and Thailand. He is principal investigator on multiple grants in the fields of population, maternal-child health, family planning and international health and has authored over 100 publications.

 

Ann Taves, Professor of History of Christianity and American Religion, Claremont School of Theology and Professor of Religion, Claremont Graduate University
Taves' most recent book, Fits, Trances and Visions: Experiencing Religion and Explaining Experience from Wesley to James (Princeton, 1999) was awarded the Association of American Publishers Award for Best Professional/Scholarly Book in Philosophy and Religion in 2000 and was designated as one of Choice's Outstanding Academic Books of 2000. She is currently working on a series of essays on dissociation, memory, and religious experience.

 

Robert Thurman, Jey Tsong Khapa Chair of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies, Columbia University
Professor Robert A. F. Thurman, a college professor and writer for thirty years, holds the Jey Tsong Khapa Chair of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University, where he also heads the Center for Buddhist Studies. He is co-Founder and President of Tibet House New York, a cultural non-profit dedicated to preserving the endangered civilization of Tibet. He has been a student of Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism for over thirty years, and is a close personal friend H. H. the Dalai Lama. He has written a number of books, both scholarly and popular, and has lectured widely all over the world. His special interest lies in exploring the Indo-Tibetan philosophical and psychological traditions to discover whatever universal insights into the human mind and heart might contribute to a mature modern psychology. He also takes seriously the responsibility of members of "devloped" societies today to preserve the planetary environment, along with the life of the alternatives forms of human civilization, such as the Tibetan, that have become so deeply endangered.

 

Abraham Verghese, Director of Center of Ethics at University of Texas
Internist, novelist, author of My Own Country and The Tennis Partner.