The Simone Weil Lectures on Human Value

Faculty of Theology and Philosophy

School of Philosophy

First instituted in 2000, the Simone Weil Lecture on Human Value is held annually in Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane. Each year, a distinguished international scholar is invited to give a public lecture and academic seminar at ACU. The lectures are not intended to be a forum for engaging specifically with the work of Simone Weil, but are inspired by Weil's commitment to recognising the full humanity of our fellow human being, by her moral idealism and by her commitment to social justice issues.

2012 Simone Weil Lecture- Prof. Richard Kearney

Brisbane

• 14 June (6 for 6.30pm start)
• Lecture Theatre IB.12
• Register Now

North Sydney

• 18 June (6pm)
• Ryan Auditorium
• Register Now

Melbourne

• 21 June (6pm)
• Mercy Lecture Theatre
• Register Now

For further information, please contact Dr. Richard Colledge email Richard.Colledge@acu.edu.au

Prof Richard Kearney (Boston College) “Narrating Pain: The Power of Catharsis”

About Richard Kearney

Richard Kearney holds the Charles B. Seelig Chair of Philosophy at Boston College. He serves as a Visiting Professor at University College Dublin, the University of Paris (Sorbonne) and the University of Nice, and is Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at Australian Catholic University.

Professor Kearney is a prolific author in the areas of European philosophy and literature, and a public intellectual particularly in his native Ireland. He has written or edited over forty books, including two novels and a volume of poetry. Some of his recent publications include the much discussed Anatheism (Columbia, 2009), Navigations (Syracuse University Press, 2007), On Paul Ricoeur: The Owl of Minerva (Ashgate, 2005), Debates in Continental Philosophy (Fordham, 2004), and Strangers, Gods, and Monsters (Routledge, 2003).

He has served on Ireland’s Arts Council and Higher Education Authority, chaired the Irish School of Film at University College Dublin, and was involved in drafting a number of proposals for a Northern Irish peace agreement in the 1980s and 1990s.

He is a well-known contributor to European media, and has presented several series on culture and philosophy for Irish and British television.

Lecture Abstract

The lecture explores the healing function of narrative, in both fiction and history. Starting with Aristotle's famous definition of catharsis in the Poetics, it traces the therapeutic role of storytelling from ancient myth to the modern novel. It also engages with recent controversies on the moral and spiritual importance of trauma testimonies.

Previous Simone Weil Lectures

• 2011 On Forgiveness: Narrative and Lyrical
  by Kevin Hart
• 2010 To Whom we must answer? Responsibility, Community and Criminal Law
  by Antony Duff
• 2009 Knowledge and Prejudice
  by Miranda Fricker
• 2008 Uprootedness, Narratives and National Conflict
  by Jonathan Glover
• 2007 (Lecture cancelled)
• 2006 Terrorism and Religion
  by Susan Mendus
• 2005 Moral Clarity
  by Susan Neiman
• 2004 The Conversation of Mankind
  by Stephen Mulhall
• 2003 "I Want to Die, I Hate My Life": Phaedra's Malaise
  by Simon Critchley
• 2002 A Wonderful Life: Philosophy and Biography
  by Ray Monk
• 2001 A Moral Witness
  by Avishai Margalit
• 2000 Human Action and the Kantian Imperatives
  by Christine Korsgaard