Lowell Lecture
On Being Human (Series): Grave Matters; Understanding the Complexities of the Human Experience
Date & Time
March 3, 2016 at 7 p.m. - 9 p.m.
Location
Cahner's Theatre at Museum of Science
1 Science Park Boston, MA 02114
Driving Directions
Speaker(s)
Sheldon Solomon, PhD, Professor of Psychology at Skidmore College, and co-author of The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life.
Presenting Organization
Topics
Contact
Lisa Monrose (lmonrose@mos.org, 617-589-0419)
Cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker won a Pulitzer Prize in 1974 for The Denial of Death, arguing that fear of death is "the mainspring of human activity," but his ideas were generally dismissed as philosophical speculation. Sheldon Solomon and his colleagues Jeff Greenberg and Tom Pyszczynski developed Terror Management Theory (TMT) to substantiate Becker’s claim that death awareness has a profound and pervasive effect on our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in almost every domain of life. Find out how intimations of mortality influence everything from the mundane to the momentous—what you ate for lunch, whom you voted for in the last election, how judges make legal decisions, your attitudes about shopping, your mental health and physical well-being, whom you love and whom you hate. Book signing to follow.
Advance registration is encouraged but not required, beginning at 9:00 a.m., Wednesday, February 17 (Monday, February 15 for Museum members) at mos.org/events. Seats are always available for walk-ups; first come, first served.
This program is free thanks to the generosity of the Lowell Institute.