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Show • I 111 CID FOCUS: CONVOCATION THE UNIVERSITY JOURNAL• SOUTHERN UTAH UNIVERSITY• WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1996 THE UNIVERSITY JOURNAL• SOUTHERN UTAH UNIVERSITY• WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1996 FOCUS: CONVOCATION 11111 East and West topic of lecture Faculty Honor Lecture in 17th year S.S. Moorty to present this year's Honor Lecture Lecture series established to provide academic outlet for professors "Dr. Moorty is well qualified to address the topic By JIM ROBINSON because of his first hand academic and social CAMPUS EDITOR experiences in both Western and Eastern societies and cultures," Lana Johnson, SUU's director of A focus on Eastern cultures and the necessity of lectures/special projects, said. "He has a true mutual understanding between Eastern and Western intercultural background." cultures will be addressed at the SUU Distinguished A member of the SUU faculty since 1975, Moorty Faculty Honor Lecture Dec. 5. earned a Ph.D. degree at the University of Utah after Satyam S. Moorty, SUU professor of English, will being awarded a master's cfegree from Delhi lecture on "East and West: A Time to Meet" at the University in Delhi, India and a bachelor's degree 11 a.m. presentation in the Randall L. Jones Theatre. from Osmania University in Hyderabad, South India. The lecture is free to the He also has teaching public. experience at the University Moorty said he believes of Utah and at Sanaa that "we in the West must University in the Republic of discover in ourselves the Yemen as a Senior Fulbright Eastern mind as meaningfully Lecturer. as Asian people must Moorty is a recipient of the appreciate and recognize the Telugu Association of North Western mind." America (TANA) award for "Until recently it was excellence in literature, and possible for the Western he was awarded TANA's first world to conceive of itself in prize in essay writing in both isolation as the center of 1992 and 1994. civilized living, and indeed, of He has also won the all human experience and Cultural Festival of India's human experiment," he Felicitation Award for added. outstanding accomplishments "Now is the time," Moorty ' - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ' and contribution to the field of literature by a per.on of Indian origin in North said, "that the working out of a relationship between the great civilizations of the Orient and Western America. He has published numerous scholarly articles, civilizations is a matter of extreme urgency." During the lecture, Moorty said he plans to explore essays, book reviews, and poems. and share his thoughts on Indian spiritualism, His first book of poems, A Passage from India, is to Buddhist philosophy, Chinese Taoism, and Confucian be published soon. humanism. His Distinguished Famlty Honor Lecture Dec. 5 His announced focus will be on Eastern influences will be his second; he also presented the lecture in on Western culture. May of 1984. as the Grace A. Tanner Lecture, which is also of an extremely academic nature, and is usually held in April or May," Woolf said. The Grace A. Tanner Lecture in Human Values is the other lecture SENIOR STAFF WRITER sponsored by the center. This lecture "seeks to promote access to the Faculty members chosen to give the Distinguished Faculty Lecture at scholarly and scientific learning in all areas of human values which SUU are presented with one of the most coveted coups on this campus. embrace moral, artistic, intellectual, and spiritual concepts," which is The lecture series began in the early 1980s as an "effort to stimulate also the philosophy of the center itself, said Woolf. faculty academic interests," said Eugene T. Woolf, "We sponsor very high quality lectures," he said. "The Tanner lectures focus on very prestigious director of the Grace Adams Tanner Center for Human Values at SUU. lecturers who generate nationwide interest. In t his The brainchild of the faculty senate, this lecture capacity, we function as a sort of limited is also meant to provide an outlet for academic publishing house. These lectures are printed in interest among professors on campus. high quality volumes. Orders are submitted from interested parties around the world." According to Woolf, professors on campus can produce an academic paper which is submitted to According to Woolf, for one lecture, they ordered the faculty senate. 360 copies of the paper. The senate then chooses a committee out of its Woolf added that the center is still receiving requests for the lecture that Douglas R. Hofstadter members to select a paper. Next, the committee gave in 1994. screens all the papers that are submitted and selects the one that will be the focus of the next year's "We try to include discussion for the full range honor lecture. of values pertinent to the human condition," said Woolf. "The goal of the center is what we try to "It's about this time of the year that the promote in our lectures; to encourage maximum professors will begin submitting their papers for next year's lecture, " said Woolf. "The committee exposure of students, faculty and the larger works on narrowing down their search and usually community to the ideas which best exemplify the by summer, the announcement is made." human condition and the values which help define The paper that is chosen will be published and it." the author will receive a $1,000 honorarium for his The center is open for use by SUU students and or her work. "Initially, $500 was donated from the is located in the Special Collections area of the faculty senate and $500 came from the President. In SUU Library. As the director of the facility, Woolf said "We 1984, the Tanner Center helped to fund some of the would like to generate awareness of the center for honorarium. By 1985, it began to cover the entire _E_u....cg_e_n_e_T_._W_oo_l_f_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ students. The hours are kind of sporadic, because $1,000," said Woolf. "This lecture series has been very beneficial to somebody always has to be there, but many the school," said Woolf. sources are available for use. Also, the center is a good area for study "It is separate from the Convocations series and is more academic in groups." The Tanner Center and the funds for these lectures are made nature. It is presented every December because it was decided that by available through the Tanner Trust for Utah Universities. then, school has been in session for a while and students will have a Those interested in visiting the center may contact Eugene T. Woolf chance to learn about it and generate interest. It was decided not to be in his office at 586-7841. held later in the year because we didn't want it to be at the same time 'We in the West must discover in ourselves the Eastern mind as meaningfully as Asian people mus~ appreciate and recognize the Western mind,' said Satyam S. Moorty, faculty honor lecturer. By JENNIFER DURCAN SUU professor to publish his first book of poetry soon East and West have become one The following poems are from Satyam S. Moorty's first book of poetry, A Passage From India, that is to be published soon. A PASSAGE FROM INDIA (Inspired by Walt Whitman's Passage to India) You, the hallowed land of ancient myths and mighty religions of Hindus, Muslims, Christians, of Buddhists, Jains, Parsees, and Sikhs; of multiple languages, of diverse cultures; of Buddha, Ashoka, and Mahatma Gandhi; of temples, mosques, churches, and gurudwaras; of sacred rivers-Ganga, Jamuna, Godavari, and Kaveri; of Konarak and Khajuraha; of Ajanta and Ellora, of Qutub Minar and Taj Mahalgave me life and fed me virtues and values. II Your tender heart for art, sculpture, and dance, Your variegated mind for truth and science, Your noble spirit for tolerancebaffle me and elevate me. III Your mystical fusion of past, present, and yet to come, confuse me. America- VII the two sisters and daughters of the same Mother! V Columbus set his sails in pursuit of your rich shores; Now, my two children of their natural mother, America, Thoreau and Whitman gravitated toward your mysterious spirit. drawn to the aura of their father's motherland, are eager to touch the soil of their grandmother. IV VI Your sacred spirit still haunts me in the O! America and India, I sing joyously to the glory of both. lap of my adopted mother, America; You two sisters are apart only though firm and secure in the bosom of my new mother, in distance and time! nourished by the sturdy arms of the Rockies, I still cherish you, India. And I admire you Om, shantih! Om, shantih, Om, shantihi! But your spirits sing in unison, According to Satyam S. Moorty, distinguished faculty honor lecturer, the statue on the left is Natara;a, The Cosmic Dance of Shiva. The other statue is Loz:d Buddha. undaunted by the discordant elements. LINES COMPOSED UPON READING A LINE.....:. "GOD, EVER-PRESENT DIVINE PRINCIPLE, IS ALWAYS WITH US." No room br my temple in my town! I'm far renoved to visit His abode. And I'velived here for over two decades. Yet, in my house of brick and mortar, Daily I bow before my God-a mere picture· on decrepit paper; just an image carved in bronze, a simple artifact housed in cupboard-; utter ancient mystical syllables. And offer silently my prayers. My ninety six-year-old father is far away and beyond the oceans; yet, daily tended am I by his blessings. My God! He hasn't· bestowed on m.e riches, Yet His immanence nourishes my being, To face the world compressed by Terror, fear, hatred, and prejudice. Moorty said he has traced historically how in the past, from the time of Alexander the Great, there was a desire to go and find out what is in the East. He said there has been a movement from the FOCUS EDITOR occident to the Orient. Rudyard Kipling, a Victorian poet, once wrote "O, East is East, "Starting in from Columbus," said Moorty, "he wanted to and West is West/And never the twain shall meet." However discover India, but instead, he ended up discovering America." Moorty said that he explores the desire and Satyam S. Moorty, professor of English and the faculty honor lecturer, said that he fascination that there was in discovering believes "in the 20th century, we have India. For example, he said, Columbus wanted to discover India because "it was finally reached a point where the world [the the land of the spices." East and the West] has become one." As we move along through history, said Moorty said this joining of the East and Moorty, the fascination with India remained West has become possible largely due to the initially on the level of trade and later influence of the media, the movies and the concerns that we have become exposed to moved to a more intellectual level. in the Eastern world. In the past, according to Moorty, the West was coming to the East. However now, the Moorty added that in his lecture he would like to tell his audience that "here in East is coming more to the West. This can America, we have representations of be seen especially in the 19th and 20th literally all cultures, all languages, all centuries as Japan and America have come religions." together to trade and share technology. He also said religious culture has changed w..:.;...;.;;.:.;......:;.=.,.....;.:i:~.:..:...;..;..;~~~.;...::2.:.;.:.,;_.;._.;._;..;.......1 Moorty said that he will address these dramatically in the last SO years or so. For example, Moorty said topics and share some other significant thoughts on Indian that in his presentation he quotes ·a Harvard professor who said if spiritualism, Buddhist philosophy, Chinese Taoism and Confucian humanism in his lecture. you go to a city like Boston, Mass., you will see a Zen Buddist He will also focus on the best of the ancient wisdom of the East temple, a Hindu temple, a Buddist temple, meditation centers, yoga centers and varieties of people. and explain specifically the Hindu Upanishads, the Bhagawad Gita, Gandhian nonviolence, Taoist and Confucian thought, drawing In fact, Moorty said "America seems to not be so much of a liberally from the early literatures of India, China and Japan and melting pot now. It's more like a crazy quilt. A quilt of different colors." their relations to Western writers. By JO ANN LUNDGREEN --------------..---,--'"I .. |