Only Zeus is Free – Luce Lecture with Jane Bennett

For the Fall 2019 Luce Lecture, Jane Bennett, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities at the Department of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University and author of Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things, will be giving a talk entitled ‘Only Zeus is Free’: On Human Effort in the Anthropocene. Following her talk, she will dialogue with a Duke faculty, before responding to open Q and A.

The Luce lectures are a series of talk on environmental issues, climate change, and how humans relate to the world. Bennett’s talk will explore how to respond to an issue (climate change) that is so much larger than any one person. What do you do when responding to a crisis that you, as an individual, have minimal power to influence? What does freedom mean at a time when it can seem like effort is futile? What shape should organizing take in response?