This is a past event
The 2016 lecture will be given in both Aberdeen (29 March) and London (31 March) by Professor Kenneth Hart Green, University of Toronto.
Emil Fackenheim used the phrase “diabolical evil” in order to characterize the uniqueness of the Holocaust and Professor Kenneth Hart Green contends that he was not speaking merely rhetorically, but was suggesting that this unprecedented historical event revealed something new about man. In fact, in trying to account for this monstrous crime, Fackenheim concluded that it shatters everything we thought we knew about man’s limits, and his potential for evil. Drawing on Goethe’s Faust, Fackenheim compels us to consider what to do once our knowledge of man has changed. Yet Fackenheim’s view of post-Holocaust man is not quite so dark as this prior point might suggest: he also focuses on acts of unprecedented heroism during and following World War II. These cast a decidedly hopeful light on the human future – if their countervailing challenge to our dimmed view of man is properly heeded.
Book your free place here.
Malcolm Hay of Seaton devoted himself to highlighting the history of anti-Semitism and the Jewish people. His widow, Alice Ivy Hay of Seaton, made a bequest in her will to the University of Aberdeen to be used to promote greater understanding of the Jewish people and their culture. Thus, the Hay of Seaton Memorial Lecture was established.
- Speaker
- Professor Kenneth Hart Green, University of Toronto
- Venue
- British Academy, 10-11 Carlton House Terrace, London, SW1Y 5AH
- Contact
-
Katrina Allan
Deputy College Registrar, College of Arts and Social Sciences
Tel: +44 (0)1224 274122
Email: katrina.allan@abdn.ac.uk