A respected international body of scholars will examine such questions as part of "Does the Body Matter? A UB Sesquicentennial Symposium on Frontiers of Knowledge in Nature, Society and Culture."

The symposium, which will be held Friday, Oct. 4 in Slee Concert Hall, will focus on how and why the body matters, examining the significance of the multiple ways in which academic disciplines and knowledge itself are transgressing and redefining boundaries and relationships on the frontiers of the 21st century.

The keynote address will be presented by Gerald Edelman, a Nobel Prize-winning researcher and director of the Neurosciences Institute and chair of the Department of Neurobiology at the Scripps Research Institute.

Organizers of the symposium sought to put together a program that would be of interest to faculty and students across the university, according to Charles Stinger, professor of history and chair of the Sesquicentennial University-Wide Programs Committee.

The mind and body "emerged as a crucial issue or problem to be considered from a variety of disciplinary considerations," Stinger said. "The point is to draw people from a variety of areas, from the biological sciences to the humanities, who are interested in the question of the body."

The symposium will be divided into two sessions. "Mind and Agency: Frontiers of Knowing in Real and Virtual Worlds and Frontiers of Actions in Society and Nature" will explore two interrelated problems: how the body matters in two vital areas of technoscience-the neurosciences and the digital world of computer technologies. The second session, "Change: Frontiers of Biological and Cultural Change," will examine the embodied nature of change in the realms of biology and culture.

"We chose the subject, Does the Body Matter?, because so much attention in a variety of fields has focused on the subject that until recently has not been at the forefront of academic study," according to James Bono, associate professor of history and one of the symposium organizers. "More and more scholars have taken an interest in how the body affects how we comport ourselves" and how the body relates to emotions and feelings.

Gerald Edelman, a major figure in the field of neurosciences who in 1972 received the Nobel Prize for his work in immunology, was chosen to participate in UB's Sesquicentennial Academic Symposium because of his "somewhat controversial and perhaps radical view of the mind," said Bono.

"Edelman has insisted that mind and brain functions aren't set from the get go. The neuronal connections are affected by the bodily and cognitive factors of childhood." His views have implications for social and public policy issues, and raise questions, not only about nutrition and the kinds of environments to which children should be exposed, but also the roles government and society should play in childhood.

In addition to Edelman, symposium presenters will include N. Katherine Hayles, professor of English at the University of California, Los Angeles; Bruno Latour, professor at the Centre de Sociologie de l'Innovation at the Ecole Nationale SupÚrieure des Mines in Paris; Richard Lewontin, Alexander Agassiz professor of zoology and professor of biology at Harvard University; and Margaret Lock, a medical anthropologist and professor of humanities and social sciences in medicine at McGill University in Montreal.

The symposium also will include a panel discussion with UB faculty, distinguished speakers and other guests.

"The sesquicentennial is an important milestone to the university and as part of the celebration, it seemed fundamental to have a major academic event that would address some fundamental issues about knowledge and understanding, particularly as they seemed to point ahead to challenges that we're all going to have to wrestle with in the future," Stinger said.

"This is a very interesting and very important event for our university community," added Bono.

The Sesquicentennial Academic Symposium is sponsored by the Fenton Lecture Series at UB.