The College of Liberal Arts & Sciences’ annual “Without Limits: Interdisciplinary Conversations in the Liberal Arts” series launches on Tuesday, Oct. 29, with a screening of Wes Anderson’s 2018 film, “Isle of Dogs.”
The screening will take place in Lecture Center 102 beginning at 5 p.m. Associate Professor Jed Mayer will lead a discussion of the film’s themes and style immediately following the screening.
The event opens the fifth season of “Without Limits” events at SUNY New Paltz. This year’s slate is organized around ideas of “The Anthropocene,” the name many scientists have begun using to describe humanity’s fundamental domination of the current geological and climatological period.
“Isle of Dogs” offers an original perspective on how human actions have fundamentally, and perhaps fatally, altered our natural world. It follows a community of canines who have been exiled from human society, to live on an island otherwise used as a garbage dump.
Set against this dark vision of an Anthropocene future, where islands are made of toxic waste and animals are treated as trash, Anderson’s fable offers a surprisingly upbeat take on how empathy, friendship, wit and youthful optimism might hold the keys to survival.
Focusing on a distinct theme each year, the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences presents the annual “Without Limits” program to make connections across disciplines and to invite campus and community partners to investigate the meaning and role of liberal education in the 21st century.
Stay tuned for more information about upcoming Without Limit events, including a Nov. 21 talk about ecological design, organization and resilience featuring Associate Professor Matthew Friday.
Previous themes have included March of the Machines: Artificial Intelligence, Interactivity, and Automation in the Digital Age; Citizenship; Food; and Screens and Scenes.
If you have accessibility questions or require accommodations to full participate in these events, please contact the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences at parkerd@newpaltz.edu as soon as possible.
Stay tuned for updates about this year’s Without Limits series, and visit https://www.newpaltz.edu/collegelas/without-limits/ to learn more.
