Public lecture: The Cosmopolitan Neighborhood

Portland State University, Smith Memorial Student Union, Room 296, Portland, Oregon, USA, 19 November 2009, 6.30 pm

Kenneth Reinhard (UCLA) will be speaking on "The Cosmopolitan Neighborhood: Political Theological Models for Living in an Open World".

www.publichumanities.pdx.edu/ResearchGroups/cosmo.html

What does the simultaneously political and theological imperative to "love thy neighbor" suggest to us in the challenging contemporary era of globalization? What philosophical and ethical trajectories can be drawn from the ancient injunction of the Book of Leviticus to the arena of the international community?

For Kenneth Reinhard, an Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature at UCLA, "neighbor love" is as a core element in what he understands to be the tradition of "political theology" in the West.

Reinhard is an expert in early modern English literature, Shakespeare, psychoanalysis, Jewish studies, and critical theory. He is the author, with Slavoj Žižek and Eric Santner, of "The Neighbor: Three Inquiries in Political Theology" (University of Chicago Press, 2005). Currently, he is writing a book on the ethics of the neighbor in religion (Torah, Talmud, and Patristic writings), philosophy (Kant, Kierkegaard, Adorno, Rosenzweig, and Levinas), and psychoanalysis (Freud and Lacan) for Princeton University Press.

If you have any questions regarding this event, please feel free to contact the Portland Center for Public Humanities: publichumanities@pdx.edu

The event is free and open to the public.