Registration is open for the Westwood lecture on October 28th on the philosophical exploration of portraiture

Westwood Residence (Purdue University photo)

Registration is open for teachers to attend the Westwood Lecture Series on October 28th.

Jan Cover, professor of philosophy in the College of Liberal Arts, will present “Puzzles of Portraiture” at Westwood, Purdue’s presidential residence, from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m.

The Westwood Lecture Series is an opportunity for Purdue faculty and staff working on the research topic to engage with colleagues about scholarly work. The program aims to strengthen the intellectual vibrancy of the Purdue West Lafayette campus.

Space is limited to the first 50 teachers to register online.

“Riddles of Portraiture”

Jan cover

Professor of Philosophy

College of Humanities

Abstract. One can certainly ask oneself what art is. Various works on this genre, whether art historical or art critical, suggest that the visual species of art is the least misbehaved – and most amenable to unified analysis in the broadest sense. In the narrower sense, it is representational art that should now be sufficiently understood. As Pictures Go, you could be forgiven for thinking that surely it is portrait This is the most boring thing – perhaps the oldest and certainly the simplest and best understood of all. In this lecture, Cover will limit his focus to the early modern period and the ubiquitous phenomena of the printed portrait, using photographs to show the audience why the portrait is not very well understood and, at least for the philosopher, not boring.

Organic. Jan Cover is a professor of philosophy at the College of Liberal Arts. His research interests include the history of early modern philosophy and metaphysics as well as philosophy of science, religion and art.

Cover earned a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry and biophysics from the University of California, Davis, and bachelor’s, master’s and PhD degrees in philosophy from Syracuse University. His previous work on Leibniz, Spinoza, causality, space and time, and modality has been published in journals such as Philosophical Studies, Noûs, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, Synthesis, and Australasian Journal of Philosophy. Cover co-edited Leibniz: Nature and Freedom (Oxford) and Central Themes in Early Modern Philosophy (Hackett). He was co-author of “Theories of Knowledge and Reality” (McGraw-Hill, 2.), “Philosophy of Science: The Central Issues” (Norton, 2.) and “Substance and Individuation in Leibniz” (Cambridge).

Upcoming Westwood Lecture Series events in fall 2024

November 7th: Louis Tay, William C. Byham Chair in Industrial/Organizational Psychology in the College of Health and Human Sciences, will speak about assessing the happiness of societies. Tay’s research aims to understand how human well-being can be assessed and improved using innovative methodological and technological approaches.

Dec 5: Mohit Tawarmalani, executive associate dean of faculty and Allison and Nancy Schleicher Chair in Management at the Mitch Daniels School of Business, will discuss Optimization Beyond Convexity: Applications in Process Design, Networking, and Pricing. Tawarmalani’s research interests lie at the intersection of computer science, optimization and operations research with applications in business and engineering.

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