Reminder: Mac Lane Memorial Conference

Reminder: Mac Lane Memorial Conference

[Peter May]

The conference is April 7 -- 11.
There have been a few minor changes of schedule.
That and other updated details may be found at:

http://www.math.uchicago.edu/~may/MACLANE/index.html
http://www.math.uchicago.edu/~eugenia/maclane/

Since it has not yet been posted, here is a list
(still slightly tentative) of titles for the talks.

Steven Awodey
Topology and Modality

John Baez (Namboodiri Lectures)
Higher category theory, higher gauge theory

Julie Bergner
Model categories, dg categories, and derived Hall algebras

Eugenia Cheng
The periodic table of n-categories

Alissa Crans
Lie 2-groups, Lie 2-algebras, and Loop groups

Zig Fiedorowicz
n-Fold categories and n-fold loop spaces

Tom Fiore
Double categories and pseudo algebras

Peter Freyd
New structures on old categories

Nick Gurski
>From bicategories to tricategories

Peter Johnstone
Potential invertibility and presheaf toposes

Andre Joyal
The theory of quasi-categories

William Lawvere
Smooth and Simplicial Toposes

Ieke Moerdijk
Quasi-categories and quasi-operads

Peter May
Duality in bicategories and topological applications

Michael Shulman
Anchored bicategories

Danny Stevenson
Lie 2-algebras and the geometry of gerbes


As noted in the schedule, John Baez will be giving the
2006 Namboodiri Lectures at the University of Chicago in
conjunction with the conference.  This fact has also been
noted in the (interminable) crack/pot thread of postings.

Unni Namboodiri was a student of mine who was killed in a
car crash.  The lecture series was generously endowed by
his parents.  The choice of Baez as the speaker was
entirely mine, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with the
subjects of those postings.  In particular, it has nothing
to do with the role of category theory in physics, the
mathematical or sociological relationship between physics
and mathematics, or the relationship between category
theory and foundations.  Rather, I like John's mathematics,
as mathematics, and I know him to be a superb speaker.
I myself don't share his interest in physics,
but I won't hold it against him.

The conference is in honor of Saunders Mac Lane, who was my
colleague and friend for over thirty-five years.  It has been
organized by Eugenia Cheng (now at the University of Chicago)
and myself.  As Saunders would have liked, there is all of a
sudden a real categorical community at Chicago. We are eager
to share our enthusiasm and describe our interests to others.
One of the things that John, Eugenia, and many of the other
speakers have in common is that they are especially good at
making category theory interesting and appealing, at sharing
their joy in the mathematics.  That is the intended spirit of
the conference.  I urge people who have not yet decided to come
to make their way to Chicago next week.  There we shall all try
to make joyful mathematics, some category theory and some not,
in celebration of the memory of Saunders Mac Lane.

Peter May