A full night of philosophy and ideas fills the Moody Center

Rice University’s Moody Center for the Arts welcomed over 1,500 visitors for the Night of Philosophy and Ideas Jan. 26, marking the first time the international event has been held in Houston. Professor Timothy Morton, the Rita Shea Guffey Chair in English, gave the keynote address alongside acclaimed musician Laurie Anderson while surrounded by the blooms of assistant professor Natasha Bowdoin’s newest installation, “Sideways to the Sun.”

Throughout the evening, guests enjoyed such diversions as debating Rice philosophy professors in the bustling Café Philosophe set up in a Moody Center classroom; listening to professor Gwen Bradford’s discussion of man’s moral imperative to visit Mars; and viewing “Not Ok,” a documentary on Iceland’s diminishing glaciers by Dominic Boyer, professor of anthropology and director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Research in the Human Sciences at Rice, and Cymene Howe, associate professor of anthropology. (Photos by Katharine Shilcutt)