ʻATENISI INSTITUTE

First, the President of Dewey International University [DIU] in western Cambodia, Prof. Raymond Zepp, served as visiting professor of logic and mathematics at ‘Atenisi in autumn semester 2018 [see Feb. 2018 news item]. But by mid-November, ‘Atenisi’s university dean, Prof. Michael Horowitz, was completing the trade by fulfilling a three-month appointment as visiting professor of social philosophy at DIU.

“Asia need not feel upstaged by Western philosophy,” Horowitz recently e-mailed our faculty. “Lao-tse and Siddhārtha Gautama made powerful contributions to global social thought. But DIU reckons my visit affords undergraduates an indigenous interpretation of Western theory, as it were. So ‘tis back (at least initially) to the Usual Suspects – Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, and Locke.”

Although there’s no Christmas break in Cambodia, DIU shall be granting Horowitz week-long leave to enable him to tour one of the 10 Wonders of the World – the Hindu temples of Angkor, a four-hour bus ride from DIU. The dean has already assured our library he will bring back an illustrated history of the most striking temples, so students may at least vicariously experience the intensity of Angkor.