Denying Reality: A Polanyian Theory of the Contemporary Crisis

Denying Reality: A Polanyian Theory of the Contemporary Crisis 810 455 Tom Carlson

November 8, 2019 at 2 p.m. Robertson Gymnasium 1000A The present global environmental situation seems to be one of crisis, a failure to secure a human future. Is this fundamentally…

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Endless Happiness: Confessions of a Recovering Addict

Endless Happiness: Confessions of a Recovering Addict 889 1024 Tom Carlson

November 1, 2019 at 2 p.m. Robertson Gymnasium 1000A I set out to write about how to be happy, and my questions about happiness led me to a consideration of…

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With the World at Heart: Studies in the Secular Today

With the World at Heart: Studies in the Secular Today 682 1024 Tom Carlson

October 18, 2019 at 2 p.m. Robertson Gymnasium 1000A Based on a reading of key chapters from Thomas A. Carlson’s With the World at Heart: Studies in the Secular Today…

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The Law and Love in Schelling’s Pauline Anthropology

The Law and Love in Schelling’s Pauline Anthropology 460 288 Tom Carlson

May 31, 2019 at 10:00 a.m. Robertson Gymnasium 1000A Schelling’s late philosophy is rightly held to have a strong, if not simply one-dimensional, connection to the question of the religious,…

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A Defense of Reading at the End of the World

A Defense of Reading at the End of the World 795 1024 Tom Carlson

May 13, 2019 at 2:30 p.m. Robertson Gymnasium 1000A In 1936, Wallace Stevens argued for the need for a poetic response to the crises of his age, writing that “[t]he…

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The Ethics of Powerlessness

The Ethics of Powerlessness 700 525 Tom Carlson

Keynote PresentationsTuesday, April 16 Robertson Gymnasium 1000A, 4 pm The Idea of the Theological Virtues    Daniel Watts, University of Essex The doctrine of the theological virtues holds that faith,…

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Regression, Ressentiment and the Crisis of Democracy

Regression, Ressentiment and the Crisis of Democracy 900 201 Tom Carlson

March 22, 2019 at 10 a.m. Robertson Gymnasium 1000A In this seminar discussion of her paper “Regression, Ressentiment and the Crisis of Democracy,” Rahel Jaeggi responds to the question, “Are…

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Moral Grace: On K.E. Løgstrup’s Theory of Expressions of Life

Moral Grace: On K.E. Løgstrup’s Theory of Expressions of Life 816 1024 Tom Carlson

March 15, 2019 at 10 a.m. Robertson Gymnasium 1000A K.E. Løgstrup’s (1905-1981) signature theory of “expressions of life” represents the culmination of his ethical thought. According to this theory, some…

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The Cognitive Value of Love in Tolstoy’s Philosophy and Aesthetics

The Cognitive Value of Love in Tolstoy’s Philosophy and Aesthetics 1024 576 Tom Carlson

March 1, 2019 at 10 a.m. Robertson Gymnasium 1000A The cognitive value of love or the dynamic between love and knowledge for Tolstoy is not only a philosophical conundrum explored…

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The Universal, the Individual, and the Novel: Hegel, Austen, and Ethical Formation

The Universal, the Individual, and the Novel: Hegel, Austen, and Ethical Formation 1024 649 Tom Carlson

February 22, 2019 at 10 a.m. Robertson Gymnasium 1000A The seminar will focus on Professor Lewis’s recent piece “The Universal, the Individual, and the Novel: Hegel, Austen, and Ethical Formation,”…

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Democratic Affections

Democratic Affections 1024 768 Tom Carlson

The death in 2018 of Stanley Cavell brought to its ends an exceptionally rich life in philosophy, one that continues to inspire readers and colleagues throughout the humanities and the…

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A Cartography of Love

A Cartography of Love 974 660 Tom Carlson

February 8, 2019 at 10 a.m. Robertson Gymnasium 1000A It is a common grievance among readers of the work of Martin Heidegger that the existential analytic of Daseinhe develops is…

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Climate of Doubt

Climate of Doubt 500 280 Tom Carlson

January 25, 2019 at 10 a.m. Robertson Gymnasium 1000A The persistence of climate change denial in spite of popular and scientific consensus of the human impact on global warming seems…

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“Religious Affections” and the Birth of Publicity in Modern America

“Religious Affections” and the Birth of Publicity in Modern America 1024 662 Tom Carlson

January 18, 2019 at 10 a.m. Robertson Gymnasium 1000A The public expression of anger and even hate that we witness in our time—stirred up on social media and at campaign…

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Werner Herzog’s Post-Tragic Aesthetic: a Kierkegaardian Perspective

Werner Herzog’s Post-Tragic Aesthetic: a Kierkegaardian Perspective 1024 943 Tom Carlson

January 11, 2019 at 10 a.m. Robertson Gymnasium 1000A Many of Werner Herzog’s films portray protagonists who exhibit forms of subjectivity that dangerously overflow the conditions imposed by the substantial…

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Seminar with Jonathan Lear: Gettysburg Mourning

Seminar with Jonathan Lear: Gettysburg Mourning 1003 816 Nina Rismal

December 6, 2018 at 3 p.m. Robertson Gymnasium 1000A John U. Nef Distinguished Service Professor at the Committee on Social Thought and in the Department of Philosophy; Roman Family Director of…

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From Anxiety to Boredom: Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and the Secularization of Anxiety in Existentialist Thought

From Anxiety to Boredom: Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and the Secularization of Anxiety in Existentialist Thought 150 150 Tom Carlson

November 30, 2018 at 1 p.m. Robertson Gymnasium 1000A  While Kierkegaard conceives of anxiety as the psychological presupposition of the dogma of original sin, and while Heidegger himself draws heavily…

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God and the Science of Emotion, or A Spinozist Answer to the Question: “Why Did the Affective Turn Take Place?”

God and the Science of Emotion, or A Spinozist Answer to the Question: “Why Did the Affective Turn Take Place?” 150 150 Tom Carlson

November 29, 2018 at 4 p.m. Robertson Gymnasium 1000A  Recent decades have witnessed an upsurge of interest in emotional phenomena. But while the emotions themselves have been extensively studied, the…

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Seminar with Robert Pogue Harrison: Amor Mundi

Seminar with Robert Pogue Harrison: Amor Mundi 150 150 Tom Carlson

October 26, 2018 at 1-4 p.m. Robertson Gymnasium 1000A  Through a discussion of “Amor Mundi,” the final chapter of Harrison’s 2014 work Juvenescence: A Cultural History of Our Age, this…

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Public Lecture by Robert Pogue Harrison: Pondus Amoris

Public Lecture by Robert Pogue Harrison: Pondus Amoris 1024 1024 Tom Carlson

October 25, 2018 at 4 p.m. Robertson Gymnasium 1000A  Saint Augustine famously declared, “my weight is my love [pondus meum amor meus]. Wherever I am carried by it, it is…

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