On Thursday, September 21st, we welcome Dr. Robert Zaretsky for a public lecture at the Christian Study Center. Dr. Zaretsky has a joint appointment between the Honors College and the Department of Modern and Classical Languages (MCL) in the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Houston. He is the author, among other books, of The Subversive Simone Weil: A Life in Five Ideas. We invite you to purchase a copy on our Bookshop site, which can be found at https://bookshop.org/shop/christianstudycenter.
When Albert Camus went to Stockholm in 1957 to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature, he was asked if there were writers to whom he felt close. One of the two writers he named was Simone Weil. When it was pointed out that Weil had died in 1943, Camus replied that death never came between true friends.
Camus and Weil—two of 20th century France’s most disturbing, yet inspiring thinkers—had more in common than friendship. Most importantly, both shared the conviction that a moral life depends on how well we attend to the world and others. This talk will consider how the lives and writings of these two remarkable individuals reflect the act of paying attention to others.
Dr. Zaretsky's lecture will be preceded by a reception at 7:00 p.m. The lecture will begin at 7:30 p.m.
