To register for the tickets, go here.

Professor Bauman at the University of Leeds

“The Ernest Jones Lecture is an annual event commemorating the Institute’s founder Ernest Jones, a psychoanalyst who was one of the key proponents of psychoanalysis in the UK in the early twentieth century and the Institute’s President until 1944. The lecture honours Jones’ major contribution to psychoanalytic interdisciplinary studies.” (http://www.beyondthecouch.org.uk)

“Joseph S. Nye Jr. has turned upside down Machiavelli’s infamous recommendation to the Prince: it is safer when people fear you than when they love you… Whether or not that recommendation was right for the Princes, remains a moot question; but it no longer makes sense for presidents and prime ministers.

Nye would agree that because of its eminently flickery habits love is not particularly fit for a foundation on which long-term confidence could be built and rest; but so is, he adds, the state of being frightened – and especially if not reconfirmed by the Prince continuing to deliver on his threat to punish: to be as cruel, ruthless, bestial – and above all as indomitable and irresistible – as he pretended and/or was believed to be.

Yet more unreliable and frustrating that recommendation turns out to be, if love (complete with awe, respect, trust and readiness to forgive occasional faux pas, misdeeds and improprieties) is absent or not strong enough to compensate for the display of incompetence or impotence… In short: presidents and prime ministers beware: all said, it is safer to be loved than to be feared. If you have to resort to overt hostilities, don’t measure your success by the numbers of enemies killed, but by the quantity of friends, admirers and allies you’ve managed to summon, acquire and/or reassure.

You don’t believe this to be true? Just look at what happened to the Soviet Union, when it emerged from the battlefields of the Second World War with an astonishing capital of admiration and respect among the world-wide opinion-makers – only to squander it by drowning the Hungarian uprising in rivers of blood and then crushing and strangling the Czechoslovak experiment with the “socialism with a human face”, and topping up its ignominy with a disastrous economic performance and the misery produced and reproduced at home under the aegis of the planned economy” Read more here

“The official American establishment’s reaction to the Iranian youth venting briefly on the streets of Tehran their protest against fraudulent elections of June 2009 bore striking resemblance to a commercial campaign on behalf of the likes of Facebook, Google or Twitter. I suppose that some gallant investigative journalist, to whose company alas I do not belong, could have supplied weighty material proofs of such impression: Read more here

The event is hosted by HomeBase LAB Berlin - a site-specific residency and research program exploring the notion of home, operating in the intersection of contemporary art and social change.
Producer Grzegorz Lepiarz will be attending to take part in a discussion after the screening.

Thursday 17th of May 2012, doors open 7:30pm (*entrance €2)

19.30 Doors open. Drinks available at the bar.

20:00 Screening of the film ‘The Trouble with Being Human These Days’

21:00 Discussion

21:30 Drinks and music until midnight

HomeBase LAB Berlin, Thulestrasse 54, 13189, Pankow, Berlin
Entrance fee: €2

Due to small capacity of the venue anyone who would like to come please RSVP on info@homebaseberlin.com

http://www.facebook.com/events/431929330168495/

We are very excited about this event and look forward to seeing you there!

How can a man confront a world of permanent crisis? By questioning this world, even if asking questions seem useless. Collegium Civitas, “Polityka” and Royal Lazienki Museum in Warsaw present the debate of two great thinkers – Professor Bauman and Professor Gadacz. The event will be combined with a screening of “The Trouble with Being Human These Days”, a documentary based on the theories of the Supervisor of Collegium Civitas School of Sociology Zygmunt Bauman. The meeting will be hosted by redactor Jacek Żakowski, the Supervisor of the Collegium Civitas Journalism Course.

Feel invited to join us on the 22th of April (Sunday), at 18.30, Palace on the Isle in Royal Lazienki, Warsaw. More info here.

Professor Zygmunt Bauman. Photography. Grzegorz Lepiarz

We have enormous pleasure to announce 3 exclusive screenings of the film “The Trouble with Being Human These Days” during the British Sociological Association’s annual conference.
The British Sociological Association is our strategic and very important Partner.

Screenings are available to the delegates who have booked to attend the conference.

Tuesday, 10 April at 16:00 in the Roger Stevens Lecture Theatre 01
Wednesday, 11 April at 21:00 (after the conference dinner), in the Refectory
Thursday, 12 April at 13:00 (lunch) in Conference Auditorium 1

More information can be found on BSA’s website:
http://www.britsoc.co.uk/

Dr Donskis explained, that the movie not only tells the story of Zygmunt Bauman, but also the most important issues of the contemporary world. “This is the movie of our times, in which fear and hope coexist with each other, times of continuous uncertainty and tension”, he said.

Full review (only in Lithuanian) including photo gallery on VMU website:

http://www.vdu.lt/naujienos/universitete–filmo-apie-z-baumana-premjera.html

Photography: Alvydo Vaitkevičiaus (a.vaitkevicius@vkt.vdu.lt)

Dr. Leonidas Donskis is a Member of the European Parliament (2009–2014). He has written and edited thirty books, thirteen of them in English. Donskis combines political theory, history of ideas, philosophy of culture, philosophy of literature, and essayistic style. Among other books, he is the author of Modernity in Crisis: A Dialogue on the Culture of Belonging (2011), Troubled Identity and the Modern World (2009), Power and Imagination: Studies in Politics and Literature (2008), and Forms of Hatred: Troubled Imagination in Modern Philosophy and Literature (2003). His works are published in 14 languages. A wandering scholar in the past, Donskis has been researching and lecturing in the USA, Great Britain, and Europe. He acts as a visiting professor of politics at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, Lithuania. Donskis holds an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Letters from the University of Bradford, Great Britain. He hosted the political and cultural debate program Pique-Free on Lithuanian TV (2003–2009).

Dr. Leonidas Donskis in Brussels. Photo: G.Lepiarz

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