Professors defend their disciplines in apocalypse debate

Student and faculty programs

10/29/2026

Imagine a future in which a cataclysmic near-extinction level event is about to reduce Earth’s population by 99.9%. All knowledge discovered in the past 10,000 years will be lost. But before the apocalypse, a few far-sighted radicals construct an apocalypse-proof box, with space for all the knowledge of only one subject.

Which subject should they put in the box?

That’s the scenario facing five professors from across campus who will advocate that their discipline is the most important to save in the annual Apocalypse Debate, sponsored by Logos, the undergraduate philosophy journal and club.

The debate, set for 5 p.m. Nov. 6 in the Statler Auditorium of Statler Hall, will feature:

Erik Thiede, assistant professor of chemistry and chemical biology in the College of Arts and Sciences;
Hunter Adams, assistant teaching professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Cornell Duffield Engineering;
Thomas Pepinsky, the Walter F. LaFeber Professor of government (A&S);
Julia Markovits, associate professor of philosophy (A&S); and
Samuel Nelson, director of forensics and senior lecturer, School of Industrial and Labor Relations, who will play the devil’s advocate, arguing that none of the subjects should persist.

“Everyone’s talking about the value of an undergraduate education, whether universities are important anymore,” said Wyatt Sell ’27, president of Logos. “What better place to find that out than to hear professors battling for the dignity of their disciplines?”

The event will feature opening talks from each professor, rebuttals from all and then a few minutes of audience questions and answers, Sell said.

Audience members will vote to select the winner, he said. Nelson won last year’s debate by one point over Rachana Kamtekar, the Bryce and Edith M. Bowmar Professor in Humanistic Studies in the philosophy department (A&S).

The first 200 people to attend the event will receive a free sweatshirt, Sell said.