Public Lecture
The 2019 Public Lecture of the Centre for the Study of Global Ethics will be delivered by Heather Widdows (University of Birmingham). Its title is "My body, my self?"
Practicalities
When? Thursday 30 May 2019, 17h00-18h30 (The lecture starts at 17h00, but please join us for coffee and tea in Education Building from 16h40 onwards. The talk will take about 50 minutes, and is followed by a Q&A session until 18h30).
Where? Vaughan Jefferies Lecture Theatre on the first floor of the Education Building (on Prittchats Road) of the University of Birmingham. This document should contain the most important information regarding directions to, accessibility of, and facilities in the Education Building.
When? Thursday 30 May 2019, 17h00-18h30 (The lecture starts at 17h00, but please join us for coffee and tea in Education Building from 16h40 onwards. The talk will take about 50 minutes, and is followed by a Q&A session until 18h30).
Where? Vaughan Jefferies Lecture Theatre on the first floor of the Education Building (on Prittchats Road) of the University of Birmingham. This document should contain the most important information regarding directions to, accessibility of, and facilities in the Education Building.
Registration is free and open for all, but it is strongly recommended as places are limited.
Tickets now available! |
Abstract
That our bodies have become our very selves in a visual and virtual culture is one of the main arguments of Perfect Me. This is so widely believed that we often don’t recognise either that it is true (until it is pointed it out) or how surprising and transformative this is. To think that our selves are our bodies is new. We used to think of ourselves as our ‘inner selves’. Self-improvement was not improving the body but improving the mind or the soul. Being better was knowing more, having a better character or being able to do more. Success is becoming appearance-success, and recognising the moral element in this is crucial to understanding what is going on. Body work has become virtuous. If we work hard enough – stick religiously to our diet, pump iron, run, buff, smooth and firm – we will be rewarded. And the rewards will be significant. We will be better people, and, in the logic of the beauty ideal, we will be rewarded with the ‘goods of the good life’. Better relationships, better jobs, happiness, better lives. Heather's work on Beauty
In her recent book Perfect Me: Beauty as an Ethical Ideal (Princeton University Press, 2018), Heather Widdows explores the radical transformation of the status of beauty, of the beauty ideal and of what this means for how we understand human beings.
BBC Interview with Heather on how YouTube is changing the face of Beauty: |
Other Media:
The Atlantic voted Perfect Me one of 19 best books of 2018! |