Talks

In the years 1934-35, Emmanuel Lévinas linked the political and intellectual rise of Hitler and Heidegger to an “arrogant barbarism established in the heart of Europe.” The most needful philosophy was a philosophy capable of thinking in level terms with barbarism. For the young Lévinas, this was conceived as a philosophy of escape. This talk explores the theme of escape as a confrontation with barbarism leading to Lévinas’s mature ethics of the "face."

Symposium: “The Influence of Maimonides on Lévinas: From the Face of the Other to a New Thinking of Freedom,” American Philosophical Association (Eastern APA: Main Program), Baltimore, MD (January 5-8, 2022)

Author Meets Critics: Lucas Fain, Primal Philosophy: Rousseau with Laplanche, with Gregory Fried (Boston College) and Jack Foehl, MD (Harvard Medical School; Boston Psychoanalytic Society & Institute), Psychology and the Other Conference, Boston College (September 17-19, 2021) 

“Plato after Marburg: Rethinking Forms and Ideas through the Inspiration of Hermann Cohen,” American Philosophical Association (Pacific APA: Main Program), Portland, OR (March 31-April 4, 2021)

“Emmanuel Lévinas and the Escape from Barbarism,” BUJS Research Forum, Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies, Boston University (December 8, 2020)

“The Presuppositions of Being and Time: Heidegger’s Interpretation of Aristotle in the Summer Course of 1924,” American Philosophical Association (Eastern Division: Main Program), Philadelphia, PA (January 8-11, 2020)

“Philology as a Philosophical Problem in Heidegger’s Summer Course of 1924,” Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy (SPEP 2019), Pittsburgh, PA (October 31-November 2, 2019)

“Revelation, Seduction, Philosophy: Laplanche Contra Lévinas,” Psychology and the Other Conference 2019, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA (October 4-6, 2019)

“The Presuppositions of Being and Time: Heidegger’s Interpretation of Aristotle in the Summer Course of 1924,” Heidegger Circle, Nazareth College, Rochester, NY (May 16-19, 2019)

“Ontology or Politics: Κοινωνία in Heidegger’s Summer Course of 1924,” Metaphysical Society of America, Seattle University, Seattle, WA (March 28-31, 2019)

“Fittingness and the Stranger: Beauty and Fascism in Heidegger’s Conception of Justice,” Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, IL (April 7-10, 2016)

Discussant, “Hannah Arendt and the Political Realists,” Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, IL (April 7-10, 2016)

“Rousseau with Laplanche: Psychoanalysis and the Possibility of Philosophy,” Psychology and the Other Conference 2015, Cambridge, MA (October 10, 2015)

“Seduction and Eros: The Case of Alcibiades in Plato’s Symposium,” Psychology and the Other Conference 2013, Cambridge, MA (October 4-6, 2013)

“Prelude to a Genealogy of Happiness: Solon to Socrates,” 23rd World Congress of Philosophy, Athens, Greece (August 4-10, 2013)

“Rousseau and the Possibility of Philosophy,” Rousseau Association Tercentenary Conference, Colorado College, Colorado Springs, CO (December 13-15, 2012)

“An Ancient Greek Source for Swift’s Floating Island,” American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, San Antonio, TX (March 22, 2012)

“Teaching Happiness in Philosophy and Psychoanalysis,” American Philosophical Association (Pacific Division: American Association of Philosophy Teachers), San Diego, CA (April 23, 2011)

“Nihilism and the Forgetting of Happiness in Nietzsche,” Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, IL (April 2, 2011)

“Heidegger and the Modern Crisis,” Social Studies New Research Colloquium, Harvard University (October 15, 2010)