Skip to main content.
Bard
  • Bard
  • Academics sub-menuAcademics
    Bard College Commencement
    • Academics
      • Programs and Divisions
      • Structure of the Curriculum
      • Courses
      • Requirements
      • Discover Bard
      • Bard Abroad
      • Academic Calendar
      • Faculty
      • Libraries
      • College Catalogue
      • Dual-Degree Programs
      • Bard Conservatory of Music
      • Other Study Opportunities
      • Graduate Programs
      • Early Colleges
  • Admission sub-menuAdmission
    • Applying
      • Apply Now
      • Financial Aid
      • Tuition + Payment
    • Discover Bard
      • Campus Tours
      • Meet Our Students + Alumni/ae
      • For Families / Familias
    • Stay in Touch
      • Join Our Mailing List
      • Contact Us
  • Campus Life sub-menuCampus Life
    Bard Campus Life

    Make a home in Annandale.

    • Living on Campus
      • Housing + Dining
      • Campus Resources
      • Get Involved on Campus
      • Visiting + Transportation
      • Athletics + Recreation
      • New Students
  • Civic Engagement sub-menuCivic Engagement
    • Bard CCE The Center for Civic Engagement (CCE) at Bard College embodies the fundamental belief that education and civil society are inextricably linked.

      Take action.
      Make an impact.

      Get Involved
      • Campus + Community
      • In the Classroom
      • U.S. Network
      • International Network
      • About CCE
      • Resources
      • Support
  • Newsroom sub-menuNews + Events
    Upstreaming
    • News + Events
      • Newsroom
      • Events Calendar
      • Video Gallery
      • Press Releases
      • Office of Communications
      • COVID-19 Updates
    • Special Events
      • Commencement Weekend
      • Alumni/ae Reunion
      • Family + Alumni/ae Weekend
      • Fisher Center
      • Bard SummerScape
      • Bard Athletics
  • About Bard sub-menuAbout Bard

    A private college for the public good.

    Support Bard

    Legacy Challenge
    • About Bard College
      • Mission Statement
      • Bard History
      • Love of Learning
      • Visiting Bard
      • Employment
      • OSUN
      • Bard Abroad
      • The Bard Network
      • Montgomery Place Campus
      • Campus Tours
      • Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
      • Sustainability
      • Title IX and Nondiscrimination
      • HEOA Disclosures
      • Institutional Support
      • Safety and Security
      • Inside Bard
      • Alumni/ae Network
      • Family Network
      • Support Bard
      • Legacy Challenge
  • COVID-19 Information
  • Give
  • Search

Bard Press Releases

Back to All Releases

Newsroom Menu
  • Newsroom
  • Events Calendar
  • News Archive
  • Press Releases
  • Video Gallery
  • Special Programs sub-menuSpecial Programs
    • Commencement + Reunion Weekend
    • Family + Alumni/ae Weekend
    • Fisher Center
    • Bard SummerScape
    • Bard Athletics
  • Office of Communications
  • COVID-19 Updates

Bard College Students and United States Military Academy at West Point Cadets Present Three-Day Conference Exploring Issues Surrounding Equality

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.— Bard College and the United States Military Academy at West Point present a conference entitled “Equality—More or Less?” from Wednesday, April 12 through Friday, April 14. The conference takes place in Blithewood Manor on the Bard College campus and is presented by Bruce Chilton, Bernard Iddings Bell Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Bard College; Graham Parsons, assistant professor of English & philosophy at West Point; and Robert Tully, professor of philosophy at West Point. The programs are free and open to the public and no reservations are required. For more information please contact Chilton at [email protected].
 
The topic of equality reaches into every area of human culture: local politics, national identity, international relations; political science, philosophy, jurisprudence, and literature; religious institutions; the military; economics; psychology; sociology; and history. Problems focused on equality have broad dimensions of theory and practice, contrasting what should be and what can be with what is.  The examination of what equality means in these different areas holds up a mirror to ourselves.
 
Running in tandem with joint courses at both institutions, the interdisciplinary conference follows from earlier collaborations, “Can War be Just?” (2012), published as Just War in Religion and Politics by the University Press of America (2013), and “Intolerance: Political Animals and Their Prey,” a 2015 conference, now in press under the same imprint with Hamilton Books.
 
Schedule
 
“Equality—More or Less?”
 
A conference emerging from the collaborative project of
Bard College and the United States Military Academy at West Point
Hosted by the Institute of Advanced Theology and Center for Civic Engagement at Bard College
 
Chairs: Bruce Chilton, Bernard Iddings Bell Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Bard College
 
Graham Parsons, Assistant Professor of English & Philosophy, West Point
 
Robert Tully, Professor of Philosophy, West Point
 
April 12–14, 2017
 
Blithewood Manor, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York 12504

Wednesday, April 12
4:15 p.m. – Chair: Robert Tully
Marina van Zuylen, Bard Clemente Course academic director; professor of French and comparative literature
Keynote address: “The Clemente Course Experiment: How the Humanities Have Helped Veterans and Underserved Students”
 
5:15 p.m. – Chair: Ethan Quinones, Bard College
Bruce Chilton, “Equality in Paul of Tarsus: More and Less”
 
5:45 p.m. – Chair: Eric Bleys, Bard College
Richard Davis, professor of religion and Asian studies; director of Religion Program, Bard College
 “Gandhi and Caste: Inequality More or Less”
 
6:30 p.m. – Dinner at Kline Commons
 
8:00 p.m. – “Equality Is a Luxury We Can No Longer Afford”: a debate among West Point cadets and Bard students
Bard College                                        West Point
Eric Bleys                                           Johanna Forbes
Midori Barandiaran                             Matthew Kelley
Ethan Quinones                                  Morgan Landers
Nina Olshan                                        Alex Laval-Leyva
 
 
Thursday, April 13
9:15 – Chair: Nina Olshan, Bard College
Morton Ender, professor of sociology, Department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership, West Point “The (Un)Lucky Seven: Majority-Minority Relations in the U.S. Army”
 
9:45 a.m. – Chair: Victoria Halpin, Bard College
Graham Parsons, “Families and Armies in Traditional Social Contract Theory”
 
10:15 a.m. Break
 
10:30 a.m. – Chair: Bruce Chilton
Robert Tully, “Inequality in Skepticism”
 
11:00 a.m. – Chair: Bruce Chilton
Courtney Morris, assistant professor, Department of English & Philosophy, West Point
“Kantian Equality, More or Less”
 
11:30-1:30 p.m. Lunch at Kline Commons
 
1:30 p.m. – Chair: Graham Parsons
Robert J. Goldstein, director, West Point Center for the Rule of Law; Graduates Chair in Constitutional and Military Law, West Point
“Equality Deferred: A Litany of Discrimination”
 
2:00 p.m. – Chair: Robert Tully
Brandon Archuleta, assistant professor of American politics, Department of Social Sciences, West Point
“Rise of the Policy Subsystem: Reevaluating Civil War Pension Policy”

2:30 p.m. – Chair: Bruce Chilton
George W. Gawrych, Charles Boal Ewing Chair in Military History, West Point
“Equality and Diversity in the Late Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey”
 
3:00 p.m. – Chair: Antonio Gansley-Ortiz, Bard College
Tehseen Thaver, assistant professor of religion, Bard College
“Accessing the Qur'an: Abdolkarim Soroush and Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari’s Reformist Discourses on the Nature of Revelation”
 
3:30 p.m. Break
 
3:45 p.m. – Dominique Townsend, assistant professor of religion, Bard College
“Ultimate Equality and Conventional Hierarchy: A Tibetan Buddhist Approach to Power”
 
4:15 p.m. – Chair: Lila Kraus, Bard College
Shai Secunda, Jacob Neusner Associate Professor in the History and Theology of Judaism, Bard College
“Meritocracy or Old Boys Network? The Talmud and Equal Access Information”
 
4:45 p.m. – Chair: Midori Barandiaran, Bard College
Hugh Liebert, assistant professor of American politics, policy, and strategy, Department of Social Sciences, West Point
“Minding Gibbon’s Manners: Unwritten Rules and the Rhetoric of Equality”
 
5:30 p.m. Dinner Break at Kline Commons
 
 
Friday, April 14
9:15 a.m. – Chair: Ian Ullmann, Bard College
Christopher Jacobs, assistant professor, Department of Law, West Point
“Selecting a Military Court-Martial Panel: A Study in Inequality”
 
9:45 a.m. – Chair: Robert Mills, Bard College
Robert Barnsby, Cyber Law Fellow; assistant professor, Department of Law, West Point
“The Bullpen Car of Computer Network Defense: Why the Unequal Treatment of Individual Hacking Victims Is No Longer Necessary under International Humanitarian Law”
 
10:15 a.m. – Chair: Jess Zaccagnino, Bard College
Darya Pushkina, associate professor of international relations and political science; associate dean for international students, Smolny Institute (St. Petersburg State University and Bard College)
“UN Peace Missions and Protection of Civilians: Equality versus Efficiency?”
 
10:45 a.m. – Chair: Jeremy Wolf, Bard College
David Frey, associate professor of history; director, Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, West Point
“Inequality in Advance of Destruction: The Wehrmacht’s Practice and Promotion of Inequality in Operation Barbarossa”
 
Break and farewell
# # #
(3.31.17)
 

This event was last updated on 08-25-2017

back to top

Bard Press Contact:
Mark Primoff
845-758-7412
[email protected]
Recent Press Releases:
  • Pianist Shai Wosner Curates Signs, Games & Messages, a Three-Day Festival Inspired by the Musical Explorations of György Kurtág at Bard Conservatory, February 24–26
  • Bard College Professor Jenny Xie Awarded a 2023 Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship in Literature
  • Bard College Astronomer Shuo Zhang and Undergraduate Student Rose Xu Discover New X-ray Flares from the Galactic Center Supermassive Black Hole Sgr A*
  • The Rubin Museum of Art, Upstate Films, and the Fisher Center at Bard Present the New York Premiere of “this body is so impermanent…” (Vimalakirti Sutra, Chapter Two), February 8–12
Bard College
30 Campus Road
PO Box 5000
Annandale-on-Hudson, New York 12504-5000
Phone: 845-758-6822
Admission E-mail: [email protected]
©2023 Bard College
Follow Us on Twitter
Like us on Facebook
Follow Us on Instagram
You Tube
Information For:
Prospective Students
Current Employees
Alumni/ae 
Families
Quick Links
Employment
Travel to Bard
Site Search
Support Bard