Richard Kearney: Narrative Imagination and Catharsis

This lecture by Richard Kearney was the first in a series of events that took place on October 13, 2012, under the title "Imagination's Truths: Re-envisioning Imagination in Philosophy, Religion & the Arts". Richard Kearney's lecture was sponsored through the Art Talks! program of the Institute for Christian Studies and the day as a whole was a collaborative cultural event co-sponsored by the Toronto School of Theology, the Institute for Christian Studies' Centre for Philosophy, Religion, and Social Ethics (CPRSE), and Emmanuel College.
In this lecture Kearney examines his thesis that the philosophical device of deconstruction has performed a valuable, if flawed, service in its critique of the varying Western conceptions of the imagination by stimulating new and more ethically sensitive interpretations of the imagination that are especially pertinent to the work of philosophy and religion today.
Richard Kearney holds the Charles B. Seelig Chair of Philosophy at Boston College. He has written several books on the important but neglected role that imagination plays in encouraging ethical sensitivity to issues of social justice, including "The Wake of Imagination"
For information on the whole event please visit www.icscanada.edu/cprse/art-talks

[@marymadec8730]

As a writer I find this talk inspiring. The way in which the complex relationship between life as we live it and 'art', 'literature' 'poetry' in my case is played out is fascinating. I have been working with the myth of Demeter and Persephone and see in the 'transposition' and 'remembering' of my own story how these binary opposites play against each other in a cathartic way and give satisfaction in the end even if that satisfaction is not entirely complete. Enjoyed this discussion around the essential 'therapeutic' role, the 'narrative healing' of writing....Thank you Richard Kearney.