For the 12th consecutive year, 糖心logo入口 will celebrate The Gathering from July 13-15 on campus.
The Gathering is an annual three-day symposium on creativity and imagination with performances, lectures, discussions, and workshops. This year鈥檚 event, 鈥淭he Myth of Truth: Can We Prove Anything?鈥 will be a three-day discussion of the nature of truth. Participants will examine truth from the perspective of building 鈥減roof鈥 in questions of mathematics, science, philosophy, art, and politics.
The question of the value of truth has lain somewhat dormant until fairly recently, when policymakers and journalists have raised questions about what truth really is and who should determine it. Some have offered 鈥渁lternative facts鈥 so that truth has come to be seen by a divided nation to be more myth than reality to one side or the other.
Featured speakers at The Gathering
Featured speakers at the event will be Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith, historian William Dunham, and award-winning information designer and big-data expert Giorgia Lupi. The Gathering will also feature a performance by the Scranton Shakespeare Festival, as well as a host of other speakers and workshops.
Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith
Ms. Smith聽is Poet Laureate of the United States. Her many other awards and honors include a Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University, a 2004 Rona Jaffe Writers Award, a 2008 Essence Literary Award, a grant from the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation, a 2005 Whiting Award, the James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets, and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Her newest book聽Wade in the Water聽became available in April, 2018. She is the director of Princeton University鈥檚 creative writing program and lives in New Jersey.
Academy of American Poets Chancellor Toi Derricotte said of her poems: 鈥淭he surfaces of a Tracy K. Smith poem are beautiful and serene, but underneath, there is always a sense of an unknown vastness. Her poems take the risk of inviting us to imagine, as the poet does, what it is to travel in another person鈥檚 shoes. The Academy is fortunate to be able to confer this fitting recognition on one of the most important poets of our time.鈥 Ms. Smith will present on Friday, July 14 at 7: 30 p.m. in Evans Hall in Hibbard Campus Center.
Historian William Dunham
Mr. Dunham聽is a historian of mathematics who has spoken on the subject at more than 100 campuses around the nation. Now retired from Muhlenberg College, he has held visiting positions at Harvard, Princeton, Penn, and Cornell, and he is currently a research associate in mathematics at Bryn Mawr College. Mr. Dunham will present on Saturday, July 14 at 9:30 a.m. in Evans Hall in Hibbard Campus Center.
Information Designer and Big-data Expert Giorgia Lupi
Ms. Lupi is an award-winning information designer. She co-founded Accurat, a data-driven firm with offices in Milan and New York, where she is the firm鈥檚 design director. She earned a Ph.D. in design at Politecnico di Milano.
She is co-author of聽Dear Data, an aspirational hand-drawn data visualization book based on postcards that have been acquired recently as part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art. Ms. Lupi will present during a workshop on Sunday, July 15 at 9:30 a.m. in Evans Hall In Hibbard Campus Center.
The Scranton Shakespeare Festival is a non-profit organization that creates and produces聽free, professional, theater to the public. Festival performances emphasize works by William Shakespeare as well as a variety of classical and contemporary musicals, plays, operettas, melodramas, and new productions. The company鈥檚 presentation, 鈥淭ruth is Truth to the End of Reckoning鈥 will take place on Saturday, July 14, at 1:30 p.m. in Evans Hall in Hibbard Campus Center.
For a complete list of speakers and schedule of events, or to register, visit or call (570) 945-8510.
