Common Reading author to speak Aug. 30

FROM RICE NEWS STAFF REPORTS

First-year students can get a new perspective of this year’s Common Reading book when its author, renowned philosopher Anthony Appiah, speaks at Rice Aug. 30. His talk, which is open to Rice students, faculty and staff, will be at 7:30 p.m. at Rice Memorial Center’s Grand Hall.

	ANTHONY APPIAH

Appiah will discuss his book “The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen,” which shares four case studies examining ”moral revolutions.” Appiah assesses how honor has been used to justify horrifying human rights violations. At the same time, he shows how it has led to the end of some of history’s most abhorrent practices, including the Atlantic slave trade, and can lead to favorable social change.

Appiah is the Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University. He is also the president of the PEN American Center, the internationally acclaimed literary and human rights association. He has been named one of Foreign Policy’s Top 100 Global Thinkers and called a “postmodern Socrates.”

Now in its sixth year, the Common Reading welcomes new students to the Rice intellectual community, stimulates conversations across the campus on pressing issues of the day and introduces new student to the critical inquiry, scholarship and civility they will encounter and learn to practice at Rice.

For more information on the Common Reading program, visit http://students.rice.edu/students/CommonReading.asp.