Identity, Empathy and Franklin's "Others"
Location
Beaman A&B
Presentation Type
Presentation
Start Date
23-9-2013 11:00 AM
Description
Scholars of Benjamin Franklin have placed his writings in a number of rhetorical and literary contexts, but in part because of the difficulty of assigning motives to someone whose identity was so consciously public, very little has been written about how his propensity for inhabiting multiple, masked personae may have affected his empathetic response to those of other races, ethnicities or genders. This talk aims to answer a couple of questions: Did Benjamin Franklin learn anything by thus looking through the eyes of others? How did inhabiting characters like Silence Dogood or Polly Baker make him more empathetic to the concerns of others (if at all) during his nearly 70-year writing career?
Recommended Citation
Curtis, David, "Identity, Empathy and Franklin's "Others"" (2013). Humanities Symposium. 30.
https://repository.belmont.edu/humanities_symposium/2013/2013/30
Identity, Empathy and Franklin's "Others"
Beaman A&B
Scholars of Benjamin Franklin have placed his writings in a number of rhetorical and literary contexts, but in part because of the difficulty of assigning motives to someone whose identity was so consciously public, very little has been written about how his propensity for inhabiting multiple, masked personae may have affected his empathetic response to those of other races, ethnicities or genders. This talk aims to answer a couple of questions: Did Benjamin Franklin learn anything by thus looking through the eyes of others? How did inhabiting characters like Silence Dogood or Polly Baker make him more empathetic to the concerns of others (if at all) during his nearly 70-year writing career?
Comments
Convocation Credit: Academic Lecture