Monday, March 2, the Social Thought Colloquium will welcome Samuel Moyn (Yale) to deliver a visiting lecture titled "Liberalism against Itself." The talk will be held in FOSTER 505 at 5:00 PM* and will be followed by a small reception. 

 

*Please note the slightly unusual time.

 

Abstract: In the middle of the twentieth century, many liberals looked glumly at the world modernity had brought about, with its devastating wars, rising totalitarianism, and permanent nuclear terror. They concluded that, far from offering a solution to these problems, the ideals of the Enlightenment had instead created them. This talk examines how the liberal intellectuals of the Cold War era—such as Isaiah Berlin or Judith Shklar—transformed liberalism but left a disastrous legacy for our time. In memory of Jonathan Lear, special attention will be given to Lionel Trilling’s mobilization of psychoanalysis in Cold War liberalism.