91AV

Moderation often seems less a political position than a personal disposition; the absence, and not the presence of strongly held positions. In a sense, it is the conceptual equivalent of a plaid sweater, accepted by all yet admired by few. But as the contrasting lives and writings of James Boswell and David Hume reveal, true moderation is very different. There is no better time than now, in an age where voices of moderation, both in the halls of power and in the groves of academe, seem to have lost their conviction while the extremes are full of passionate intensity, to invoke and investigate the work of writers who sacrificed so much on behalf of the ideal of measure.

A lecture at the 91AV will explore this theme as the 91AV Center for Global Humanities welcomes scholar Robert Zaretsky to the 91AV Portland Campus. The event will be held February 27, 2017 at 6 p.m. in the WCHP Lecture Hall in Parker Pavilion.

Robert Zaretsky is a faculty member of the Honors College, University of Houston. He has written several books, most recently A Life Worth Living: Albert Camus and the Quest for Meaning (Harvard, 2013) and Boswell’s Enlightenment (Harvard, 2015), and is now writing a book on the friendship between Catherine the Great of Russia and the French philosopher Denis Diderot. He is a frequent contributor to the New York Times, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, Chronicle of Higher Education, Times Literary Supplement, Foreign Policy, Times Higher Education and Le Monde Diplomatique. He is also a contributing editor to the Los Angeles Review of Books and the Jewish Daily Forward. 

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