Join us for an afternoon with Inger N.I. Kuin, who will speak about her new book, Diogenes: The Rebellious Life and Revolutionary Philosophy of the Original Cynic. A conversation with Gregory Hays will follow. This in-person event will be free and open to the public. We recommend arriving early for the best seating.
About the Book: In his own day, the ancient philosopher Diogenes the Cynic had a reputation for eccentricity, heckling his fellow philosophers in the marketplace, living in a clay pot, and relieving himself in public. Since his death in 323 BCE, devoted followers made him and his ideas famous the world over. But what we think we know about Diogenes remains distorted and sanitized.
In Diogenes, classicist Inger N.I. Kuin scours all existing evidence of Diogenes and his followers to offer an in-depth account of Diogenes’s life and thought, revealing a man whose innovative ideas about power, death, nature, and the body have much to teach the contemporary world. He pioneered a vision of simplicity and autonomy in his day-to-day life, stressing the importance of living in the here and now, and of always thinking for oneself. Diogenes stands apart as history’s first recorded critic of slavery and a proud exile from polite society whose challenging thought proved foundational for the Stoics and their successors.
Diogenes rehabilitates Diogenes as a compelling thinker for the twenty-first century, one who demands that we look at our society with fresh eyes and be unafraid of change—starting with ourselves.
About the Author: Inger N.I. Kuin is the author of the upcoming book Diogenes and is an associate professor of classics general faculty at the University of Virginia. Born in the Netherlands, she worked as a journalist before receiving an MA in philosophy from the University of Amsterdam and a PhD in classics from NYU. She divides her time between Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and Charlottesville, VA.
About the Moderator: Gregory Hays is a classical scholar and translator, and a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books. His English version of Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations is available from Random House’s Modern Library. His academic research centers on late and medieval Latin, as well as on Latin palaeography and manuscript studies. He is currently finishing an edition with commentary of the works of the sixth century allegorist Fulgentius (forthcoming from Oxford University Press). He is an associate professor of classics at the University of Virginia.
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