A Crisis of Value: Stoic Responses to the Pandemic
Videos and Podcasts
Audience
Project Scope
Project Description

This work was part of a larger project led by Dr. Rabea Rittgerodt from De Gruyter, who was responsible for collecting, editing, and publishing thirteen different contributions from fields of the humanities. Tue Søvsø wrote a short piece on Stoic emotion control and therapy for a pamphlet published by De Gruyter in order to make the ancients Stoics' reflections on how to deal with existential threats and negative emotions available to a broader audience. This was subsequently elaborated on in a public lecture for the “De Gruyter Corona Talks: Thinking in a State of Exception” broadcasted on Youtube (see video on the left column), and in a follow-up interview with two researchers from the project 'In Limbo: Conversations.' These contributions were therefore rather 'spin-offs' of the project on Stoic ethics.

Translational Perspective

The aim of these contributions was to transfer the insights gained through a philosophical investigation of the historic views of the Stoics to a modern context. This could offer the chance to apply their observations about the human psyche and practical strategies towards dealing with personal disasters, which might help alleviate the suffering of (at least a few of the) people hit by the pandemic and qualify our responses to the social injustices revealed by the crisis. The work was therefore translational in the sense that it was founded in insights derived from humanities research which were translated into a new context with the aim of helping people deal with the crisis in more constructive ways.

Humanities Influences
headshot
Contact Infomation: First name
Tue
Contact Information: Last name
Søvsø
Contact Information: Position title
Ph.D. student
Contact Information: Institutional affiliation
Freie Universität Berlin
Contact Information: Email address
tue [at] zedat.fu-berlin.de
City/State/Country

Berlin, Germany