If you had one hour to speak to an audience before you died, what would you say?
The Jewish Renaissance Project gave a professor the chance to answer that question in a talk titled "The Last Lecture" last Thursday in Hillel's Steinhardt Hall. Urban Studies professor Andrew Lamas presented tools for analyzing social relationships based on the philosophies of Martin Buber.
In the talk, Lamas applied Buber's theories to the objectification of women, minimum-wage employment and law partnerships. He emphasized the difference between experiencing and relating in social and economic situations.
"What I'm mainly interested in ... is to open up what some people might argue is Pandora's box, but other people might argue is a menu of options that you have to create the world in a different way," Lamas said.
Lamas discussed the Alaska Permanent Trust, which distributes revenue from the extraction of Alaskan oil to the residents of the state. He hailed the program as a model for equitable use of natural resources and discussed a potential similar trust for the oil of Iraq.
"If you think the world is a little fucked up, there are actually options that are available to your generation to choose, and what ought to piss you off is that you haven't heard about them," he said.
Wharton junior and JRP Fellow Eli Robinson said "The Last Lecture" is modeled after similar lectures at Harvard and Carnegie Mellon universities.
"We're giving enlightened people a chance to step outside what they have to do and give them a chance to do what they want to do," Robinson said.
College sophomore Estee Katcoff, who is in Lamas' "Religion and Social Justice" class, said she values his ability to force his listeners to challenge previously held viewpoints.
"I think that there is no last lecture for learning something like this," Katcoff said. "There is no easy solution to the problems that he brings up."
