Dartmouth Events

"Multiverse Cosmologies & the Entanglement of Religion and Science"

Lecture by Mary-Jane Rubenstein (Wesleyan).

Friday, April 10, 2015
4:15pm – 5:30pm
006 Steele Hall
Intended Audience(s): Public
Categories: Lectures & Seminars

Mary-Jane Rubenstein is Associate Professor and Chair of Religion at Wesleyan University and core faculty in the Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program. She is the author of Strange Wonder: The Closure of Metaphysics and Opening of Awe and Worlds Without End: The Many Lives of the Multiverse. Of her talk here at Dartmouth, she writes, "In recent  years, an increasing number of astro- and quantum physicists have begun to suggest that, in addition to our universe, there might be an infinite number of others—the hypothetical compendium of which has come to be called “the multiverse.” This lecture will briefly introduce different models of the multiverse in order to address its central questions:

  • How did an infinite number of inaccessible universes become a respectable scientific hypothesis?
  • What distinguishes multiverse cosmologies from metaphysics, fiction, or mythology?
  • And can these distinctions hold, or does the emergence of multiverse cosmologies herald a reconfiguration of the very categories of physics, philosophy, and religion?"

Free and open to all. Reception follows. Copies of Professor Rubenstein's book Worlds Without End: The Many Lives of the Multiverse will be available for sale and signing (cash or check only).

Co-sponsored by the Dartmouth College Departments of Religion and Philosophy, Jewish Studies Program, Leslies Humanities Center, and the Carol Berkowitz Fund in Physics.

For more information, contact:
Marcia Welsh
(603) 646-3738

Events are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted.