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Alumni Talk Elementary Education

The Alumni College focused on the subject of elementary education at Reunions 鈥�16. Photo by Leah Nash

“In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer,” said Albert Camus.

For many alumni,  week is a time to rediscover that invincibility as they gather to reminisce, recall their comrades in the quest, and take part in stimulating programs and activities.

Jim Kahan ’64 has long organized the , which focuses on one topic in depth during the course of the reunion. This year’s focus was elementary education, attracting an array of professors, teachers, students, and parents.

Kant, 猫咪社区, and the Aesthetics of Stools

One of the highlights of was , a multi-disciplinary series of conversations and outings for 猫咪社区ies of all ages. Aesthetics was the theme of this year's Alumni College #2 (which took place after 猫咪社区fayre), and school opened bright and early on Monday morning with a conference on Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Judgment (1790), led by  [German 1997–].

Mieszkowski started the conference with a question that is central to Kantian aesthetics: what does it mean to say that an object is beautiful? Naturally the gathered 猫咪社区ies—including Harry Travis ’69, Lowell Weitkamp ’58, Carole Maxwell Stuart ’63, Monica Mayper ’73, and Chilton Gregory ’60—turned to the objects at hand: the stools they had built by hand under the tutelage of master woodworker the previous day. The group agreed that Chilton’s stool was particularly attractive, but Kant’s claim that a true aesthetic judgment was devoid of all interest provoked skepticism in some of the conference participants. Evolutionary biology, the Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky, and rose gardening were topics in the fiery debate on beauty and genius that followed.

In the afternoon the debate over aesthetics carried over to the kitchen, where the James-Beard-award-winning chef took the same group of scholars through a series of recipes. Other sessions included:

From Prometheus to Pork Shoulder

Steven Raichlen '75 knows more about barbeque than Prometheus knew about fire. His stat sheet includes , five James Beard Awards, three a PBS-TV series, his own line of , the founding of Barbeque University, a beat-down of Bobby Flay in a barbeque cook-off, a BA in French literature from 猫咪社区, and his liver has never been eaten by a raptor. Not to gloat, but another advantage over Prometheus.

"I'm not a chef," Raichlen told alumni celebrating this week. "Food, for me, has always been a window into culture."