Kris Sealey, Ph.D., associate professor of philosophy at Fairfield University, will discuss her book, "Moments of Disruption: Levinas, Sartre, and the Question of Transcendence" (SUNY Press, 2013), at 7 p.m., Tuesday, April 1, at Fairfield University Bookstore, 1499 Post Road, Fairfield. This event is free and open to the public.

Dr. Sealey received both her M.A. and Ph.D. in philosophy from The University of Memphis and she does research in the areas of continental philosophy, social and political philosophy and race theory. She has published articles on the work of Jean-Paul Sartre and Emmanuel Levinas, two of the most important thinkers of the second half of the 20th century, in Levinas Studies, Research in Phenomenology, the Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology and other publications.

"Moments of Disruption" details the role of passivity in both Sartre's and Levinas' conceptions of transcendence and identity. It is the first English monograph-length documentation of their philosophical relationship and offers a novel understanding of the difference between their accounts of human existence. The focus of Dr. Sealey's talk will be on Sartre's and Levinas' radical accounts of ethical responsibility, the development of which her book traces. In particular, she will discuss the implications of this notion of responsibility, for contemporary narratives of the human being as autonomous subjects who are charged with the shaping of the world in which they exist.

Dr. Sealey's appearance is presented by Fairfield's College of Arts & Sciences, the Department of Philosophy and the Learning for a Lifetime Program.

For more information on this event, contact Elizabeth Hastings, ehastings@fairfield.edu or (203) 254-4000, ext. 2688.

Posted On: 03-07-2014 03:03 PM

Volume: 46 Number: 198