This free event will begin with an optional guided tour of historic West Laurel Hill Cemetery beginning at 6pm followed by the talk at 7:30 pm on Poe's work, Eureka, given by Harry Lee Poe, descendant of the family of Edgar Allan Poe and Professor of Faith and Culture, Union University.

Description
In 1841, Edgar Allan Poe introduced the first mystery story (“Murders in the Rue Morgue”) with a discussion of the limitations of empiricism and rationalism, insisting that the great breakthroughs come when Imagination mediates the others. He then related the first mystery story to demonstrate how the same empirical data might be explained rationally with a variety of explanations, all of which might be wrong. In 1848, Poe took this line of thought to the extreme with his 150 page essay Eureka in which he argued that the universe expanded from a single primordial atom, that time and space are the same thing, that electro-magnetism and light are related, and that deity must be responsible for such a universe. Poe was dismissed as a lunatic for denying the well established scientific truth of the eternality and infinity of the universe, and Imagination remains in the closet.

Harry Lee Poe serves as Charles Colson Professor of Faith and Culture at Union University in Jackson, Tennessee. He has written several books and numerous articles on how the gospel intersects with culture.  Poe also serves as president of the Edgar Allan Poe Museum of Richmond, Virginia.

This free public event is sponsored by Metanexus Institute in conjunction with West Laurel Hill Cemetery.  No registration required.  Seasonal refreshments will be served.

Click here to download a pdf of the "Eureka" flyer