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(Hybrid) The Examined Life with Scott Hershovitz and Sarah Bakewell

Thu May 9 @ 19 h 30 - 20 h 30

Free

Professional Philosophers Scott Hershovitz and Sarah Bakewell explore the big questions of life: the nature of goodness, the possibility of ethical living, and the meaning of being human.

The Library will be closed on this day for the Ascension holiday.
Library services will not be available.
Doors will open at 19h00.

Event will be followed by a reception.

In Nasty, Brutish, and Short, Scott Hershovitz, co-writing with his two young children, uses the child’s sense of curiosity and simplicity as a starting point from which to investigate ethics, existence, religion, identity, and justice from fresh perspectives. In his latest book, Law is a Moral Practice, Scott Hershovitz approaches the relationship between moral action and the law with refreshing frankness and levity, uncovering a very human history of setting, breaking, and remaking rules for good living.

Sarah Bakewell’s work is similarly engaged with the idea of ethical living. Her latest book, Humanly Possible, masterfully recounts the long history of humanism and freethinking. Join these two professional philosophers to discuss the big questions of life: the nature of goodness, the possibility of ethical living, and the meaning of being human.

Join the two authors as they consider philosophy’s most fundamental questions, the eternal urgency of philosophy, and the necessity of making philosophical thought accessible to all.

About the speakers:

Scott Hershovitz is director of the Law and Ethics Program and professor of law and philosophy at the University of Michigan. He holds a BA in philosophy and politics from the University of Georgia, a JD from Yale Law School, and a D.Phil. from the University of Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. Professor Hershovitz served as a law clerk for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the U.S. Supreme Court. He is the author of Nasty, Brutish, and Short, co-written with his two young children. He is married to Julie Kaplan, a social worker, whom he met at summer camp. They live in Ann Arbor with their two children, Rex and Hank. 

Sarah Bakewell is the author of several works of biography and philosophy, including At the Existentialist Café and How to Live: a life of Montaigne. Her latest, Humanly Possible: 700 years of humanist freethinking, enquiry, and hope, was a New York Times bestseller in 2023 and was named by Barack Obama as one of his favorite books of the year.

Learn more:

Hershovitz’s first book, Nasty, Brutish, and Short, takes the hilarious and profound questions of young children as the starting point for serious philosophical inquiry. You can read an excerpt from the book here.

A New York Times review of Humanly Possible explains that Bakewell “delights in the paradoxical and the particular, reminding us that every human being contains multitudes.” Read the review here.

Important information: The discussion will be available both online and in person. While the conversation will happen in person (the speakers will appear in the Reading Room), the Library will stream the conversation on Zoom for a live viewing experience. Both in-person and online attendees will be able to pose questions.

Attendance at this event constitutes permission for your photograph or video to be taken at the event and used by the American Library in Paris for marketing, promotional, pedagogical, or other purposes.

Read along with the Library! If you want to prepare ahead of this event, copies of Nasty, Brutish, and Short and Humanly Possible will be on sale one week in advance, as well as after the event. Stop by Member Services to purchase your copy. Books are generously provided by Smith&Son.

Attendees will have the opportunity to have their copy signed following the conversation.

Evenings with an Author are free and open to the public (with a 10€ suggested donation)
thanks to the generous support of Gregory Annenberg Weingarten of GRoW @ Annenberg.

Details

Date:
Thu May 9
Time:
19 h 30 min - 20 h 30 min
Cost:
Free
Event Categories:
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(Hybrid) The Examined Life with Scott Hershovitz and Sarah Bakewell
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