Changing the World: Music, Art & Cultural Consciousness

Changing the World: Music, Art & Cultural Consciousness
Changing the World: Music, Art & Cultural Consciousness

Changing the World: Music, Art & Cultural Consciousness

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Can art and music change the world? One cool old Greek thought so. “When modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the state always change with them,” Plato wrote in The Republic, quite a few centuries before Pussy Riot.

The relationship between art, music, consciousness, and social change is the subject of a free trio of presentations and a panel discussion Wednesday from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington in the first-floor Garland Room. The event is part of Intersections, a series of lectures and discussions investigating and celebrating the complexity of contemporary culture and the arts, co-sponsored by the Department of Humanities, History, and Social Sciences at Columbia College Chicago and the Illinois Humanities Council.

“Cultural and creative expression can be a means to initiate social change by breaking down barriers, sparking new ideas, critical and creative thinking, and visions of alternative realities and futures,” writes Louis Silverstein, Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Columbia, transcendental philosopher, author, and social activist. “These creative expressions enrich the public discourse that is at the heart of a healthy democracy.”

Food for thought to be sure.

Silverstein will be one of the presenters tomorrow, along with Joan Giroux, Associate Professor in the Art & Design Department at Columbia, and yours truly, who can only hope not to seem like a babbling idiot in such heady company.

This event is free and open to the public and, again, the fun starts at 6 p.m.

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