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Mere Beauty: Utah Symposium on Science and Literature

Art during the solar eclipse
Bevil Conway
/
Bevil Conway
Art during the solar eclipse

If you got a poet, a neuroscientist and a theoretical physicist together to talk about beauty, what would they possibly have to say to each other?

This week, a symposium at the University of Utah has brought together a distinguished panel of guests to discuss where and how art and science meet at the crossroads of beauty. For neuroscientist Bevil Conway, a look under the hood at how our brains perceive color and shape can enrich our experience of art. The physicist Brian Greene says that our knack for appreciating beauty springs from the same mundane bits and pieces that make up everything from us to rocks to rocket ships. And for the poet Katharine Coles, beauty TKTKTK. Coles, Greene and Conway join us to explore what beauty is, regardless of who’s beholding it.

The Utah Symposium in Science and Literature runs until Friday. You can find details here.

GUESTS

Katharine Coles | Co-director of the Utah Symposium in Science and Literature, poet, former Poet Laureate of Utah, distinguished professor, author. Her latest book is “Ghost Apples.” [Amazon | Bookshop]

Bevil Conway | Neuroscientist and visual artist. You can see his work at bevilconway.com

Brian Greene | Professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia University and an author. His latest book is “Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe” [Amazon | Bookshop]

Airdate: Thursday, April 11, 2024, at 9 a.m.

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