From a number of angles, scholars today emphasize the need for ethics to address human mortality and vulnerability: Alasdair MacIntyre's focus on the role of dependency in virtue ethics, Ernest Becker's concern with the "denial of death," Martha Nussbaum's research on the fragility of ethics itself, Emmanuel Levinas' phenomenology of the body, and more. In our seminar, I introduce these debates and then discuss classical rabbinic sources that speak to the same dimensions of life in a very different idiom. We will see a variety of ways that these ancient sources direct the reader to confront weakness and channel that confrontation into motivation for cultivating virtue and acting well. The seminar concludes with a consideration of the ways that the rabbinic sources can inspire new developments in the contemporary debates.
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Location:	Black Cultural Center, 126 Squires
Price:	Free
Sponsor:	Religious Studies Program and Department of Interdisciplinary Studies
Contact:	Grace Kao gkao@vt.edu 540-231-5805
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