Hutton Honors College
— Indiana University
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"Living (and Dying) for Ideas"Undergraduate Discussion Supper with Costica Bradatan, Distinguished Guest Fellow, University of Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study
Are there circumstances in which the only way to convey an idea powerfully, persuasively is to die for it? Can a dramatic death spark change? Philosopher Costica Bradatan has written that the decision by a young Tunisian street vendor to set himself on fire in 2010 ignited the Arab Spring but notes as well that since 2009 close to 50 Tibetans have done the same to protest Chinese rule of Tibet without a change in the political circumstances of Tibet. What drives someone to such an act? What consequences can be expected? Do such acts have anything in common with suicide bombings? With risking one's life in war? What roles do religion, culture, and philosophy play in the exercise of such choices? Come to the HHC for a supper with Costica Bradatan to talk about his work on "dying (and living) for ideas."
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Bradatan
is an associate professor in the Honors College at
Texas
Tech University and a Distinguished Guest Fellow at the Notre Dame
Institute for Advanced Study. His areas of expertise and teaching
include history of philosophy, philosophy of religion, philosophy of
literature and philosophy of film, with a special emphasis on the
performative aspects of philosophizing ("philosophy as a way of life,"
"self-creation," "dying for an idea"), the literariness of philosophical
texts, as well as the role played by the religious, cultural and
intellectual contexts in their production. He has written or edited
seven books, and is currently working on a book on philosophical
martyrdom, Dying for Ideas: The Dangerous Lives of the
Philosophers.
His book reviews, essays, and op-eds can be found in the New York
Times,
CNN.com (CNN Opinion), Dissent, Christian Science Monitor, The New
Statesman, Los Angeles Review of Books, Times Literary Supplement, The
Australian, and other such venues. Over the past decade Bradatan has
received grants from, or held visiting appointments at, Istituto
Italiano di Scienze Umane (Italy), Università degli Studi di Firenze
(Italy), Trinity College Dublin (Ireland), University of Texas-Austin,
the Newberry Library (Chicago), Woodrow Wilson International Center for
Scholars (Washington DC), Bogliasco Foundation (Genoa, Italy) and the
University of California at Los Angeles. He has taught at universities
in Europe (United Kingdom, Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania) and
Asia (India and Turkey).
For more information about Bradatan and his work, check out these links:
