Conversations on the Challenges of a Life Well-Lived with Prof Joe Foweraker and Pip Harris

Pip Harris and Joe Foweraker invite you to join them for Conversations on the Challenges of a Life Well-Lived. We call them conversations because everyone is welcome to join in. Life’s challenges are universal, but we all experience them in different ways. Our hope is that we may reach a better understanding of a life well-lived by sharing our experiences and reflecting on them together.

You may recall Joe’s previous series of talks at the Ashburton Arts Centre on Democracy and the Making of the Modern World and, more recently, The Meaning of Life. Now Pip and Joe have teamed up to offer a very different and less formal inquiry into the living of our lives and how we learn to manage both the challenges and the emotions arising from them.

While the conversations are intended to be open-ended, we will offer some initial guidance by proposing a distinct topic or theme for the inquiry each week. We will also introduce and explore a cluster of ideas as a way of getting the ball rolling. There will be five weekly sessions beginning on Thursday 17th October; and, if there is enough interest, a further five sessions in the Spring of next year.

Anyone can come along to these. Nobody will be required to speak if they do not wish to do so. We aspire to easy-going, informal meetings where every curious mind will be welcome.

Here are the topics for the first five weeks:

Week 1: Trust, betrayal, acceptance
Week 2: Normality, difference, idiosyncrasy
Week 3: Compassion, cruelty, indifference
Week 4: Humility, vanity, confidence
Week 5: Love, loss, grief

Pip Harris has a background in education and community development. She is a Quaker, an environmental & peace activist, and a community facilitator.

Joe Foweraker is an Emeritus Fellow of St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford, and an Honorary Professor at the University of Exeter. Over the course of his career, he has studied and taught literature, language, politics, and philosophy; and has worked at universities and research centres worldwide.
See Joe’s books and autobiographical note on Amazon.com

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