Author and Ethics Professor Paul Woodruff to Deliver Two Burleigh Lectures November 16

November 11, 2004

November 11, 2004, Greencastle, Ind. - Paul Woodruff, Darrel K. Royal Professor of Ethics and American Society at the University of Texas at Austin, will present two Burleigh Lectures at DePauw University on Tuesday, November 16. At 4:15, Woodruff will speak on "The Music of Democracy: Theater as Public Education in Ancient Athens," in the auditorium of the Richard E. Peeler Art Center. At 8 p.m., he will discuss "Reverence as a Virtue: Plato vs. the Poets," in the same venue. Both events are free and open to all.

Professor Woodruff has taught at the University of Texas since 1973, with an academic specialty in ancient Greek philosophy. He became director of the Plan II honors program in 1991 after three years chairing the department of philosophy. Woodruff has written plays, opera libretti, poetry, and short fiction, as well as a number of translations. His novella set in Vietnam won an Austin Book Award, and his play on returning veterans won a B. Iden Payne Award for best new play in 1983. His radio play was produced by the BBC in 1968.

Woodruff's academic publications include a commentary on Plato's Hippias Major and a collection, Facing Evil, edited with Harry Wilmer. His scholarly articles in ancient philosophy include work on Plato, Socrates, Protagoras, and ancient Pyrrhonism. He has also published in ethics and aesthetics. His 2001 meditation on a classical theme in ethics, Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue, was recognized by the Christian Science Monitor among notable non-fiction for the year.

The professor has also published a number of translations widely used in college courses. Current writing projects include The Necessity of Theater, a book on philosophy of theater, and a study of the conflict in ancient Greece between traditional values and the new learning of the golden age, under the working title Wisdom Most Human. His latest book is First Democracy: Facing the Original Ideas, which will be published in January 2005. Of the book, journalist Bill Moyers opines, "Paul Woodruff takes us to where democracy began -- as a beautiful idea -- and brings us all the way to the present moment of peril and the challenge we face to fulfil the dream."

Read a 2003 Moyers-Woodruff interview by clicking here.

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