Professor of History Robert Westbrook will reconsider the World War I writings of philosopher Randolph Bourne in light of contemporary American interventionism in a talk titled "Bourne Over Baghdad" at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 17, in the Welles-Brown Room of Rush Rhees Library on the University of Rochester's River Campus.
The talk is free and open to the public, and will be followed by a discussion and reception.
"Randolph Bourne's name no longer carries the resonance it once did in the wider culture," Westbrook observes. "One of his recent biographers has labeled him 'a forgotten prophet.' Occasionally his apparition has appeared in debates over the war in Iraq, though rarely with anything like a full appreciation of Bourne's dissent from Wilsonian orthodoxy. But since so many on the Right and the Left alike have justified the Iraq war in strikingly Wilsonian terms, it is perhaps worth looking more attentively than we have yet" at Bourne.
The lecture is sponsored by the Iota Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa to foster the discussion of timely and compelling topics. Phi Beta Kappa is the nation's oldest and largest academic honor society. For more information, contact Glenn Cerosaletti at glenn.cerosaletti@rochester.edu.