Questioning the Obvious series: On Hope
Book ticketsOrganised by:
British Psychoanalytical Society (incorporating the Institute of Psychoanalysis)
Description
The next event from the ‘Questioning the obvious’ series for the general public.
A collaboration between the Institute of Psychoanalysis and the Centre for Philosophy and Art at King’s College, London
Dostoevsky was emphatic about hope: “To live without hope is to cease to live. Hell is hopelessness.” In our world today, hope does intuitively feel like a vital necessity. But: what is hope? Is it the same as optimism? As faith? Or desire? Was Dostoevsky right about it being essential for life? Or is it an unhelpful denial of our difficulties, a destructive fob? What might art, theory and clinical practice tell us about this elusive thing called hope? Join philosophers, analysts and artists to debate these questions.
Speakers:
Nishan Kazazian is an American Artist, licensed Architect and Educator. Born and raised in Beirut to an Armenian family, Nishan lives and works in New York City and East Hampton, NY. His art resonates with aspects of his childhood, personal and family history – anchored in the present and looking to an imaginative future. This is a narrative of being dispersed and then gathered together, of resilience and adaptation, expressed through the synergy of various artistic media.
Colette Olive is a PhD candidate at King’s College London, where she is also Administrator of the Centre for Philosophy & Arts. Her specialism is in utopianism. Her research centres on a variety of topics in the philosophy of art including whether we can learn from art and whether art improves us morally.
William Badenhorst is a psychoanalyst with the British Psychoanalytical Society and a psychiatrist in private practice.
Chair:
Alla Rubitel is a psychoanalyst with the British Psychoanalytical Society and a consultant psychiatrist at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust.
