UPEI professor participates in Intellectual Muscle podcast series

Dr. Joe Velaidum of the University of Prince Edward Island will grapple with the 'big' question--the meaning of life--during a provocative podcast on December 15.

Entitled 'Attaining Spiritual Heights: The Meaning of Life and the Quest for Transcendence,' the podcast can be heard on December 15 at www.theglobeandmail.com/intellectual-muscle. UPEI is one of 25 Canadian universities participating in the Intellectual Muscle: University Dialogues for Vancouver 2010 podcast series.

Velaidum's talk revolves around the inescapable need of people to transcend their "humanness' and the challenges and pitfalls they encounter along the way.

'Given the brute fact of death, what is the point in persisting at trying to rebel against the tyranny of time? Why aren't more of us beset by doubt and powerlessness and depression? I suggest that, like the Olympian, most of us have an inescapable need to transcend our given human natures and strive to become more than we are by connecting to something greater than what our separated and individual existences allow.'

Intellectual Muscle features eclectic talks by prominent and up-and-coming Canadian intellectuals on topics related to the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. The program, developed by Vancouver 2010 and the University of British Columbia, in collaboration with universities across Canada and The Globe and Mail, runs until the end of the Games in March 2010.

Velaidum is university director for student engagement and retention, the founding director of the Centre for Christianity and Culture, and chair of the Department of Religious Studies. He has published numerous articles on the Canadian literary and cultural critic Northrop Frye, and is now working on multimedia and book-length projects dealing with the meaning of atheism and faith in the modern world.