To see photos from Cavarero's visits to Siena, please click here.
The Siena College Symposium on Living Philosophers brings philosophy to life for Siena Saints. This unique yearlong course immerses students in the works of a famous thinker before allowing them the opportunity to come into both intellectual and personal contact with the Philosopher they are studying.
Founded in 2005 as part of an initiative to develop programs of “academic excellence” at Siena College, the Symposium has created a very dynamic and customizable learning opportunity for the student participants. Unique to other courses, students enrolled in the Symposium on Living Philosophers work under the guidance of a faculty mentor and an external scholar to develop an independent research project. During the academic year, the featured philosopher comes to campus twice to meet with the 12 students, as well as the larger Siena community. This year’s philosopher was Adriana Cavarero, a political philosopher at the University of Verona in Italy and the Symposium’s first international guest.
Political Science major Courtney Tomeny ’17, focused her research for the course on the necessity of finding the appropriate language to talk about sexual violence to convey the true harm and trauma. She utilized Cavarero’s book Horrorism: Naming Contemporary Violence for her research, focusing on the term “horrorism,” something that Cavarero coined to convey violence that affects the being of a person.
“I was very excited to meet with Adriana Cavarero both semesters because we had been engaging with her work for so long,” Tomeny said. “Opportunities like this one are incredibly rare and it was fascinating to have the philosopher who we read about all year in person talking to our class about her work and answering all of the questions we had. Meeting Adriana Cavarero and having her give feedback on my research was a remarkable experience and being able to discuss it with her was very helpful.”
Co-taught and co-directed by Fanny Söderbäck, Ph.D., and Laurie Naranch, Ph.D., this course encouraged students to go out of their academic comfort zones and face challenging topics head-on.
Kaitlyn Krolik ’16, a senior political science major, looked at Cavarero’s understanding of human uniqueness and relationality as it applies to animals. Developing interest in the Symposium of Living Philosophers during her sophomore year, Krolik saw this as an opportunity to not only further develop herself as a student, but as a person and future professional.
“Academic opportunities in the classroom are important; they improve the ways students think and work,” Krolik said. “However, academic experiences that transcend the classroom are what set us up for success upon graduation. If I took nothing else from my experience engaging with Cavarero, I found confidence in my voice and my ideas. I was able to respectfully stand my ground when we disagreed on animal uniqueness and the arguments I presented in my paper.”
Cavarero not only provided insight to this select group, but spoke with other Siena community members in two public lectures during her visits to the College. Her first lecture “Horrorist Violence from the Holocaust to our Present” took place in September, and her closing lecture, “The Pleasure of the Ear: Listening to the Voice of Others” concluded the Symposium in April.
