Rutgers University Distinguished Professor Dean Zimmerman will present the 38th annual Mary Olive Woods Lecture at Western Illinois University at 7 p.m. Thursday, September 18 in the University Union Grand Ballroom. Zimmerman’s presentation, “Why Would Anyone Be a Dualist? Souls, Bodies, and the Afterlife,” will explore how philosophical reflection on the nature of consciousness and the vagueness of ordinary material objects may support the Christian view of the afterlife and the dualism of persons. Zimmerman is the founder and current co-director (with Brian Leftow) of the Rutgers Center for the Philosophy of Religion. He is the founding editor of Oxford Studies in Metaphysics and currently co-edits the series with Karen Bennett. Zimmerman has also co-edited multiple scholarly volumes in metaphysics and philosophy of religion and his work includes over 60 academic articles. He earned a Bachelor of Arts from Minnesota State University–Mankato and a Doctor of Philosophy from Brown University, where he studied under the guidance of Roderick Chisholm. Before joining Rutgers, Zimmerman taught at the University of Notre Dame and Syracuse University.

An additional conversation with Zimmerman about his work will be held from 9:30 am-11:30 am Sept. 19 in Morgan Hall, room 453. Also, those interested in joining in a reading group of Zimmerman's work on Friday afternoons before his visit can email WIU Professor Gordon Pettit at g-pettit@wiu.edu for more information.

This lecture is sponsored by the Department of Race, Religion, Gender, and Multidisciplinary Studies; the Department of Mathematics & Philosophy; and the Mary Olive Woods Foundation.