The Sophia Lectures explore the perennial questions of philosophy as they bear on the meaning and value of modern life. While the lecture series aims to make sense of our contemporary moment, it does so through the study of Western culture’s foundational texts, ideas, and spiritual insights.
This year's Sophia Lectures will be given by the distinguished philosopher of religion, Professor Douglas Hedley of the University of Cambridge.
Engaging with a wide array of sources—from Greek philosophy to Patristic and medieval theology, Indian metaphysics and contemporary ludic studies—Professor Hedley will explore the underlying philosophical dimension of play in all of its forms. Is there a principle that unites the play of animals, the simple games of children, the intricacy of fine art, and the paraphernalia of professional athletics? And what connection obtains between the free play of the imagination and the divine act of creation? Professor Hedley will take up these questions, among many others, in conversation with interlocutors like Schiller, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Johan Huizinga, and Ludwig Wittgenstein.
Please join us for one or all of these lectures:
Monday, April 3rd, 5:30-7 p.m.
Monday, April 10th, 5:30-7 p.m.
Monday, April 17th, 5:30-7 p.m.
Monday, April 24th, 5:30-7 p.m.
Monday, May 1st, 5:30-7 p.m.
Free and open to the public. Register here.
The series will be recorded.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Douglas Hedley is Professor of the Philosophy of Religion at Cambridge University. He was educated at Keble College, Oxford and at the University of Munich, and has previously taught at Nottingham University. He is the Director of the Cambridge Centre for the Study of Platonism and co-chair of the Platonism and Neoplatonism section of the American Academy of Religion. Dr Hedley’s work centers on concepts of imagination, violence, and the sublime, and he has published widely, from early modern philosophy—particularly the Cambridge Platonists—to Coleridge. He is the Principal Investigator for the AHRC grant on The Cambridge Platonists at the Origins of Enlightenment: Texts, Debates, and Reception (1650-1730), and is co-editor of the Series Studies in Philosophical Theology. He is a former Templeton Fellow at the University of Notre Dame, Secretary of the British Society for the Philosophy of Religion, and President of the European Society for the Philosophy of Religion. He has also held the Directeur d'études invités at the EPHE of the Sorbonne, the Alan Richardson Fellow at the Theology Department in Durham, and was Teape Lecturer in India in 2006. Dr Hedley is a highly sought-after expert in his field.
REGISTER HERE.
