The previous blog entry (February 9) begins the discussion of the upcoming initial meeting of the Conference on Ethics and Public Argumentation at Butler University, April 1 – 4 of this spring. The theme, “Engaging the Community,” highlights various settings for building community through ethical communication. In the previous entry, community was defined in very broad terms: “an identifiable group of people engaged in ongoing cohesive, supportive, and positive interaction with one another.”In the sessions of this inaugural conference, such a broad definition allows for a variety of ways in which people envision and enact “community.”
First, there is community on a global, international, and political level. The Keynote Address for the conference is to be delivered on Thursday evening of the week (April 3) by Dr. Allan Boesak, the Director of the Desmond Tutu Center at Butler and The Christian Theological Center. Dr. Boesak will speak on Nelson Mandela as an ethical communicator (see also blog entry for December 6, 2013). Similarly, on the first day of the conference, Tuesday, April 1, Sean Jacobs, originally from Cape Town, South Africa, founder of the website, Africa is a Country, and professor of international affairs at the New School in New York City, will present on the topic, “Africa is a Country and Shifting Digital Landscapes in Media of Africa.” The ironic title of the website is intended to point to the inadequate ways global or Western media often portray the continent. His topic suggests ways that communities are represented by others and how communities represent themselves. And, his subject also suggests that there are “digital” communities.
Second, social and political issues of community arise in local contexts. The opening session on the schedule features the Reverend Charles Harrison of the Barnes United Methodist Church discussing his ministry through the Indianapolis chapter of the 10 Point Coalition. His session will be followed by a forum on the challenges of “Standing for Community in Indianapolis” bringing together local media and community representatives on a panel with the Rev. Harrison.
Third, the social and economic challenges facing many local communities are presented on Wednesday, April 2, in the depiction of community in award-winning documentaries (a “film festival” day). Two of the films use sports (particularly basketball, appropriate for Indiana) as the setting for presenting issues of building and maintaining a sense of community. The film about Medora, Indiana, is covered in the most recent entry of this blog. It’s nationally televised debut is scheduled for two days earlier on PBS’ award-winning Independent Lens series. The other sports-based film, to be screened beginning at noon on Wednesday is Undefeated: The Roger Brown Story, by Ted Green, formerly a sports editor with the Indianapolis Star. Roger Brown was the star of the Indiana Pacers in the early days of the team when it played in the American Basketball Association (ABA) before joining the NBA. Unfairly shut out of college and pro basketball because of supposed connections with a big-time gambler in New York City, when Brown starred for a Brooklyn high school, Brown missed out on five years or more of what could have been a fabulous career. When he was dismissed as a freshman from Dayton University’s team, as a result of the allegations, a local family took him in—a first indication of the importance of community. After his years of starring with the Pacers, Brown devoted himself to his new community, Indianapolis, serving on the city-council council and in other community organizations.
The other film to be screened on Wednesday afternoon represents the centrality of inclusiveness in the concept of community. Elaine Hall is the founder of the Miracle Project, which is a theater program created especially for autistic children, their siblings, and friends. She is the speaker for this year’s Howard L. Schrott Lecture Series as part of the CEPA meeting. Her appearance will follow the screening of her Emmy-winning film, Autism: the Musical, beginning at 2:25 that afternoon. After discovering that her son Neal, adopted from a Russian orphanage as a toddler, was severely autistic, she also began to discover how children like him were often systematically excluded from their school and neighborhood communities. She was able to build a “community within a community” of other parents and families with children similarly exhibiting autism. They made contact with a documentary director, Tricia Regan, who agreed to film the process of the development of a theatrical musical put on by the children. As Regan tells one interviewer, the film is the story of people dealing with a problem, rather than a film about “autism.” In that way, the film shows people in everyday scenes and relationships coming to grips with personal and emotional issues. The viewer becomes caught up in these stories and the compelling personalities of the children as well as the parents. The film to be screened in the evening, Medora, shares with Hall’s film stories of people overcoming personal obstacles.
Also on the level of local community, student members of the Butler University Debate Team will stage an exhibition debate on one significant way in which the Butler community has come to define itself. Their question for debate will be the following: “Does the “Butler Way” apply only to athletics?”
The fourth level of community is the level of interpersonal relationships. Dealing with these issues on Friday, April 4, will be Elizabeth Bernstein, the writer of the well-known column featured in the Wall Street Journal, “Bonds.” It is fitting that her presentation be the final event of the CEPA meeting, since so many of the issues taken up in the preceding sessions often come down to matters of interpersonal communication: how people dealing with many different kinds of problems, in different kinds of relationships, have to communicate with others in face-to-face interaction.
Please plan to join us for one or more of these sessions. More information on CEPA 2014 along with the individual events will soon be available at this web site.
William W. Neher
Bill Neher is professor emeritus of communication studies at Butler University, where he taught for 42 years. Over those years he has served as Dean of the University College, Director of the Honors Program, Head of the Department of Communication Studies, the Chair of the faculty governance, and most recently as the first Dean (Interim) for the new College of Communication begun in June 2010. He is the author of several books dealing with organizational and professional communication, ethics, and African studies, plus several public speaking and communication text books.
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