The Secular Saint: Hope in the Time of Terror 

When: May 3, 2012 at 7pm

Where: Wyckoff Auditorium, Seattle University 

For: Open to the public

 Professor Frank Ambrosio, PhD.

Georgetown University

 This lecture reflects on whether authentic hope is realistically possible in an age when for the first time the threat of human initiated, globalized species extinction has become an imminent danger. Starting with an examination of the evidence in the 20th Century of the historical death of hope based on either traditional religious or secular grounds alone, the notion of the "Secular Saint" is introduced, using Albert Camus and Simone Weil as points of reference, to explore the possibility of the rebirth of a type of "humiliated hope," which has taken its own death fully into account.

Dr. Ambrosio is the interim director of the Georgetown University Doctor of Liberal; Studies Program, a program which he helped to found and is also an associate professor of Philosophy. He is the recipient of many teaching awards. His areas of current teaching include Plato, existentialism, hermeneutics and an interdisciplinary course on Dante and the Christian Imagination.  Dr. Ambrosio’s research has been in the area of hermeneutics and especially the work of Hans-Georg Gadamer. His most recent book, Dante and Derrida: Face to Face, was published by State University of New York in 2007, and he is also the editor of The Question of Christian Philosophy Today (Fordham University Press, 1999).

This event is sponsored by the Ernest Becker Foundation and co-sponsored by the Departments of Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies, Psychology and the Honors Program.

The event is free and open to the public. For additional information, contact Steen Halling in the Psychology Department (shalling@seattleu.edu) or 296-5392.