Interdisciplinary conference honors visionary LeMoine

Many — if not most — cultures predicate their literature, ethical codes, legal systems and even health care practices on their religions.

However, modern scholarship often ignores or downplays this vital source of inspiration. The late Fannie LeMoine, UW–Madison administrator and professor of classics and comparative literature, understood well the relationship between religion and the humanities. UW–Madison will host a conference in her memory, “Living with Divinity: The Place of the Spiritual in Academic Discourse” Oct. 30-31.

LeMoine died in August after battling with leukemia for more than 20 years. For the last two years, she was involved with the UW Law School’s Law and Humanities Project and its journal, Graven Images. A fellow collaborator on those projects, law professor Leonard Kaplan co-organized the “Living with Divinity” conference. He says each of the sessions will examine a particular spiritual issue from the perspective of different scholarly areas.

“We’ll essentially be looking at the mystery of existence, and how this plays out in various disciplines,” he says.

Kaplan says his own field often reduces legal analysis to economics, equating law with power. “That is misguided. Analysis of theological discourse at different moments in history forces us to be aware of how existence always has pointed toward something transcendent. The humanities complement the economic component of law and make evident the richness and ambiguity of the human spirit.”

Conference co-organizer Andrew Weiner, professor of English, says the humanities frequently reflect the prevailing attitudes of a specific time and place, and can offer important clues as to how those attitudes shifted and what caused them to change. The “Living with Divinity” conference will explore such human universals as transgression, responsibility, notions of “the good,” concepts of the state and more.

According to Weiner, the agenda is very much in keeping with what LeMoine would have wanted. “She often spoke of a desire to connect concerns of the head and heart in scholarship. That’s what we’re trying to do with this conference,” he says.

LeMoine’s husband Sigurd Midelfort will read her last paper, “Remembering Rome: Images of Rome in Edith Wharton’s Fiction” Oct. 30 at the 4 p.m. session on “Images, Metaphors and Madness.”

LeMoine joined the faculty in 1966. She chaired the university’s initiative, “Future Directions: The University in the 21st Century” in 1986-87, and was an associate dean in the Graduate School from 1994 until her death.

All sessions are free and open to the public, although the dinner Oct. 30 at 7 p.m. is $20. The conference will be held in the Law School’s faculty lounge, room 7200. For more information, including a complete list of conference topics and speakers, contact Keith Landers, (608) 262-2240.