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The Reeder Scholars, a new intellectual residence community, invite the campus to participate in a discussion of guilt 9 p.m. tonight in the back room of Gilbert’s.
Ice cream, fruit, and other food will be served at the event, which will be led by Trustee Scholar and computer science major Bryan Culbertson ’07 (Ormond Beach, Fla.).
Culbertson defines guilt as a negative emotion caused by actions perceived as morally wrong.
“I do believe that this is not an unrealistic assumption, that we have all felt guilty at many points in our lives,” he says. “Both individually and collectively we have felt guilt for centuries of slavery, guilt for the oppression of women, guilt for being wealthy, guilt for the Holocaust, guilt for eating animals, guilt for eating, guilt for not recycling, etc.”
The influence of guilt on human behavior and the role it plays in manipulation will be the focus of the discussion. Culbertson offers the following websites for background reading:
Overview of Guilt
Healthy and Unhealthy Guilt
Origin of Guilt
Religious Guilt
Environmental Guilt
Named for its Reeder Street residence, the Reeder Scholars program borrows its basic structure from the McKelvy House Scholars program – regularly holding discussions open to the campus and organizing activities both on and off campus – but its students are determined that the program have its own distinguishing characteristics.
Past Discussions
Sept. 27 — “Consumer Behavior”
Sept. 20 — “Human Nature”
Sept. 13 — “Food as a Cultural Identity”
Sept. 3 — “Offensiveness and Media”