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Lecture at St John’s College Explores Dogs and Friendships
What can we learn from dogs? Gary Borjesson, a tutor at St. John’s College, will explore human friendship and obedience “using our relationships with dogs to hold a mirror to our own souls,” he says. Borjesson’s lecture, “Spirited Friends: On Dogs and Friendship,” is free and open to the public and will be held in the Francis Scott Key Auditorium on Friday, November 6, at 8:15 p.m.
“What can we learn from dogs about friendship? Among other things, dogs draw our attention to the troubling question of where, if at all, authority fits in friendship,” says Borjesson. “For not only do they love to question authority, but in myth and philosophy dogs symbolize the spirited part of our own natures.”
In his lecture Borjesson will seek to clarify “the meaning of obedience in our friendships, whether with each other or with dogs. Tellingly, the spirited part of us is that which cares about friendship and about mastery and obedience. But how can the cooler climes of mastery and obedience be reconciled with the loving warmth of friendship?” His lecture will include references to Aristotle and Plato, as well as themes from evolutionary biology.
Mr. Borjesson joined St. John’s as a tutor in 1999.