Thursday, March 16, 7 pm, Zoom
Old Dominion University’s Institute for Jewish Studies and Interfaith Understanding and United Jewish Federation of Tidewater present David Weinfeld, PhD in conversation about his book, An American Friendship: Horace Kallen, Alain Locke, and the Development of Cultural Pluralism.
Weinfeld’s talk explores how cultural pluralism, the intellectual precursor to multiculturalism, emerged from the friendship of two American philosophers, German-Jewish immigrant Horace Kallen (1882–1974) and African American Alain Locke (1885–1954).
It is a simple idea—different ethnic groups can and should coexist in the United States, perpetuating their cultures for the betterment of the entire country—and it grew out of the lived experience of this friendship between two remarkable individuals.
Kallen was a founding faculty member of the New School for Social Research and a leading American Zionist, while Locke, the first Black Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, became a professor at Howard University and the intellectual godfather of the 1920s aesthetic movement known as the Harlem Renaissance.
For both Kallen and Locke, friendship itself served as a metaphor for cultural pluralism, exemplified by people who found common ground while appreciating each other’s differences. This understanding of cultural pluralism offers a new vision for diverse societies across the globe and provides critical background for understanding the conflicts over identity politics that polarize U.S. society today.
Weinfeld is an assistant professor in the department of Philosophy and World Religions at Rowan University in Glassboro, N.J. Previously, Weinfeld taught in the religious studies program at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, where he held the Harry Lyons Chair in Judaic Studies. His first book, An American Friendship: Horace Kallen, Alain Locke, and the Development of Cultural Pluralism, was published in 2022 by Cornell University Press.
To join the conversation: Zoom: https://tinyurl.com/mpdbrj8v
For more information, contact ijiu@odu.edu.