Dr. Linda Zagzebski, philosophy and religion scholar at the University of Oklahoma, will present the eighth annual Maurice Meyer Distinguished Endowed Lecture on Thursday, Oct. 11, at 11:00 a.m. in the Will Rogers Auditorium at Rogers State University in Claremore.
Zagzebski’s lecture will address the philosophical issues many people face while living in a society such as the U.S., which has multiple religious belief systems. Her talk is titled “Self-Trust and the Diversity of Religions.”
“On one hand, we trust our own deeply held beliefs, but on the other hand, we also trust the intellectual admiration we feel for some of the people who have religious beliefs that conflict with our own,” she said.
Zagzebski is the George Lynn Cross Research Professor of Philosophy and Kingfisher College Chair of the Philosophy of Religion and Ethics at OU, where she has taught since 1999.
She is a graduate of Stanford University, received a Ph.D. from UCLA and taught for 20 years at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, where she chaired the philosophy department.
She is past president of the Society of Christian Philosophers and of the American Catholic Philosophical Association. Zagzebski has given many endowed lectures, including the Romanell Lectures of Phi Beta Kappa and the McCarthy Lectures at the Gregorian University in Rome.
Her books include “The Dilemma of Freedom and Foreknowledge” (Oxford University Press, 1991), “Virtues of the Mind” (Cambridge University Press, 1996), “Divine Motivation Theory” (Cambridge University Press, 2004), and “Philosophy of Religion: An Historical Introduction” (Blackwell, 2007), as well as many articles in epistemology, philosophy of religion and virtue ethics. She is a member of the National Research Council.
The Maurice Meyer Endowed Lectureship was established at RSU by Mr. Irvin Frank in honor of his uncle, Sergeant Maurice Meyer.
Maurice Meyer was a member of Company A, 357 Regiment. He served with distinction as an officer of the 90th Division during the St. Mihiel campaign in France during World War I. He was killed by German shrapnel on Sept. 23, 1918. He died the following day and was accorded a hero’s funeral in Tulsa on May 3, 1922.
In 1920 the first barracks were built on the campus of the Oklahoma Military Academy (RSU’s predecessor institution). The building was named the Maurice Meyer Barracks in honor of Oklahoma’s fallen war hero. Today, the same building, now Meyer Hall, houses the RSU president’s offices and the Oklahoma Military Academy Museum.
The Maurice Meyer Endowed Lectureship is held annually to honor the legacy of the Meyer family and the life of an American who died defending freedom and democracy. The goal of the lectureship is to foster an appreciation for diversity and humanity and to promote tolerance and understanding of other cultures, people and ideas.
For more information, call the RSU Office of Development at (918) 343-7773.