BOOKS & COFFEE

The year's next meeting of "Books & Coffee" will be held on Tuesday,
December 3, 7:30 PM, at The Patten House (UTC Faculty Club), 801 Oak Street,
at the corner of Oak and Palmetto  Streets.  Professor Lucien Ellington, UC
Foundation Professor at UTC and editor of the influential journal "Education
about Asia," will discuss T. R. Reid's book "Confucius Lives Next Door: What
Living in the East Teaches Us About Living in the West." Reid, an NPR
commentator and former Tokyo bureau chief for the Washington Post, lived in
Japan for five years, and during those years became a great admirer of the
strengths of the countries of East Asia---not so much their economic
achievements, which have lost much of their luster in recent years, but
their social strengths, epitomized by their safe streets, fine schools, and
stable families. Reid connects these achievements with the pervasive
background influence of Confucian thinking, and proposes that East Asians
have much to teach the West about the preconditions for social harmony and
cohesion. It should be a thought-provoking evening. "Books & Coffee" is
cosponsored by the SunTrust Chair of Excellence in Humanities at UTC and
Covenant College. The event is free---and so is the Greyfriar's coffee! The
general public is warmly invited.