Regular blog readers will remember our seminar speaker competition from a few years ago.
Here was our bracket, back in 2015:
And here were the 64 contestants:
– Philosophers:Plato (seeded 1 in group)Alan Turing (seeded 2)Aristotle (3)Friedrich Nietzsche (4)Thomas HobbesJean-Jacques RousseauBertrand RussellKarl Popper
– Religious Leaders:Mohandas Gandhi (1)Martin Luther King (2)Henry David Thoreau (3)Mother Teresa (4)Al SharptonPhyllis SchlaflyYoko OnoBono
– Authors:William Shakespeare (1)Miguel de Cervantes (2)James Joyce (3)Mark Twain (4)Jane AustenJohn UpdikeRaymond CarverLeo Tolstoy
– Artists:Leonardo da Vinci (1)Rembrandt van Rijn (2)Vincent van Gogh (3)Marcel Duchamp (4)Thomas KinkadeGrandma MosesBarbara KrugerThe guy who did Piss Christ
– Founders of Religions:Jesus (1)Mohammad (2)Buddha (3)Abraham (4)L. Ron HubbardMary Baker EddySigmund FreudKarl Marx
– Cult Figures:John Waters (1)Philip K. Dick (2)Ed Wood (3)Judy Garland (4)Sun Myung MoonCharles MansonJoan CrawfordStanley Kubrick
– Comedians:Richard Pryor (1)George Carlin (2)Chris Rock (3)Larry David (4)Alan BennettStewart LeeEd McMahonHenny Youngman
– Modern French Intellectuals:Albert Camus (1)Simone de Beauvoir (2)Bernard-Henry Levy (3)Claude Levi-Strauss (4)Raymond AronJacques DerridaJean BaudrillardBruno Latour
We did single elimination, one match per day, alternating with the regular blog posts. See here and here for the first two contests, here for an intermediate round, and here for the conclusion.
2019 edition
Who would be the ultimate seminar speaker? I’m not asking for the most popular speaker, or the most relevant, or the best speaker, or the deepest, or even the coolest, but rather some combination of the above.
Our new list includes eight current or historical figures from each of the following eight categories:– Wits– Creative eaters– Magicians– Mathematicians– TV hosts– People from New Jersey– GOATs– People whose names end in f
All these categories seem to be possible choices to reach the sort of general-interest intellectual community that was implied by the [notoriously hyped] announcement of Slavoj Zizek Bruno Latour’s visit to Columbia a few years ago.
The rules
I’ll post one matchup each day at noon, starting sometime next week or so, once we have the brackets prepared.
Once each pairing is up, all of you can feel free (indeed, are encouraged) to comment. I’ll announce the results when posting the next day’s matchup.
I’ll decide each day’s winner not based on a popular vote but based on the strength and amusingness of the arguments given by advocates on both sides. So give it your best!
As with our previous contest four years ago, we’re continuing the regular flow of statistical modeling, causal inference, and social science posts. They’ll alternate with these matchup postings.