About the Speaker

[Photo: Jonathan Lear]

Jonathan Lear

Jonathan Lear is the John U. Nef Distinguished Service Professor, Committee on Social Thought and the Department of Philosophy. Using the available anthropology, the history of the Crow Indian tribes during their confinement to reservations, and drawing on philosophy and psychoanalytic theory, Lear will explore the point at which people face the end of their way of life — a philosophical inquiry into a peculiar vulnerability that goes to the heart of the human condition. His most recent book: Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation (2007).

Please join Jonathan Lear, John U. Nef Distinguished Service Professor, Committee on Social Thought and the Department of Philosophy for his lecture on What is it to be deprived of a culture?

What is it to be deprived of a culture?
In his recent book, Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation (2006), Jonathan Lear explores what it means when people must face the end of their way of life. His meditation was inspired by a quote from Plenty Coups (1848-1932), a great chief of the Crow people, whose way of life ended when they were forced onto a reservation: "When the buffalo went away the hearts of my people fell to the ground, and they could not lift them up again. After this nothing happened." Drawing from anthropology, history, philosophy, and psychoanalysis, Mr. Lear will discuss the implications of the eradication of cultures and the rising sense of anxiety about civilization’s vulnerability. At the heart of his meditation is the question of whether it is possible to maintain hope in a meaningful existence even as one’s own existence loses all meaning.

When: Tuesday, October 18, 2007
Location:

Chicago Club - The Burnham Room
81 E. Van Buren Street
Chicago, IL
Lunch: 11:30 a.m. followed by Professor Lear's program at 12:00 noon
Cost: $30 per person, members and guests

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