Dorothy Hodgson:
Hi, I'm Dorothy Hodgson. I am Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Anthropology here at Brandeis.
Elizabeth Ferry:
Hi, my name's Elizabeth Ferry and I'm a Professor in the Anthropology Department and the Latin American and Latino Studies Program.
John Plotz:
And Hello, I'm John Plotz. Barbara Mandel Professor for the Humanities.
Elizabeth Ferry:
And along with John Plotz, I'm co-host of the podcast, Recall This Book.
John Plotz:
And it's a huge pleasure to introduce this year's new student book forum selection, Peter Godfrey-Smith's Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness. Now we'll hear from a student perspective, Sheila Malley, Class of '22, will speak about her take on the book and how it speaks to our community.
Sheila Malley '22:
I think the book Other Minds speaks to our incoming students by opening up possibilities to a whole new way of thinking, which is good preparation for joining Brandeis. Being open to looking at the world around us; in this case, through an octopus, and taking a deeper look at what's really going on inside rather than just taking it at face value is something that students will use all throughout their academic life on Brandeis.
John Plotz:
And what about you, Elizabeth? How do you think this book speaks to our incoming students?
Elizabeth Ferry:
Not only that it tries to imagine how you might understand another mind, you know – it's hard enough to understand the minds of fellow humans let alone other species, right? This is clearly a moment in which we're confronting the difficulty of understanding in our own species. So it really takes seriously that difficulty, but also really values the attempt to bridge difference, which I think has a real urgency in contemporary moment.
John Plotz:
I will just sort of continue since the next question is what does the book speak to on a larger scale? The point about multiple perspectives, the importance of allowing not just a multi-disciplinary approach, but a respect for different intellectual viewpoints on the same problem is completely characteristic of the criteria that we use every year to select a book for the new Student Book Forum. But it almost always ends up with our picking a novel because traditionally we think of novels as capable of containing this kind of multiperspectivalism. And I think it's a real tribute to Godfrey-Smith breathing medium that he's able to create that multiperspectivalism, even across species in a way that I actually think is interestingly comparable to fiction, but is obviously different from fiction. So it's just such a pleasure to turn away from fiction to nonfiction in this striking radical way.
Elizabeth Ferry:
The other thing that I think it really brings is a multi-disciplinary perspective and perspective from a number of different angles. So the author is a philosopher of science. There is a good deal of biology, kind of translated for a non-scientific audience. It's also written compellingly and the author is a scuba diver.
John Plotz:
Physically!
Elizabeth Ferry:
So we also learn about this kind of physical material interaction with the octopus. And I think this idea of approaching something from a number of different angles or from a number of different trainings or lenses or sets of conversations is really characteristic of a Brandeis education, of ideas, of interchange – connecting through things of importance, connecting through things of importance, to them and to their studies.
John Plotz:
I totally agree with everything you just said, Elizabeth. I really like the notion of any shared text that you can think that a thousand plus students – because not just the incoming class, but also all of the mentors, or sort of partners and leaders that they have in their small groups – it provides a sort of common culture. I guess it’s almost like a kind of Brandeis specific cannon and they’re going to have a chance to take classes with people who are different from you in many ways. And you're going to discover interests you didn't know you had. And the result of those, I don't think you're going to know, even at the end of your education, what the result of that is. You're only going to find out a decade later when you're going to see what path it led you down and that’s a great strength of a place like Brandeis.
Sheila Malley '22:
Personally, I think some of the best collaboration and mentorship experiences I've had have come from people that thought about things very differently than I have – because these connections allowed me to challenge whatever preconceptions I may have had and pushed me to ask different questions or approach a situation in a different way than I might have otherwise.
Elizabeth Ferry:
I have to say that I'm continually learning from my students on different kinds of topics. One of the things I love most about being a faculty member is being able to kind of catch that fire from a student –when they really set out to define a project. Maybe it's sparked by something they did in class, or maybe they come to it from some other direction, but are sort of caught on fire by it and to see that develop … Brandeis provides a really fertile opportunity for those kinds of collaborations that allow people, allow students, to carefully develop their ideas in ways that they want them to go.
John Plotz:
Cool.
Sheila Malley '22:
I think Other Minds is a great book to get you ready for this openness, and I really hope you enjoy reading it.
Dorothy Hodgson:
The New Student Book Forum is one of several meaningful traditions you will experience during your first year to demonstrate our commitment to the liberal arts mission and to build a shared intellectual community. After completing the book, you will then have an opportunity to listen to, learn from and engage with the author to discuss the book further in small faculty-led discussion groups, and to reference and integrate the book in other first-year activities. And I'm delighted that you will be joining us here in the fall.