We are experiencing a global context of crises and multiple dystopia. The meta-narrative of Humanity’s progress carried by Reason has failed. Postmodernity has become a time marked by a future without promise – save the promise of avoiding the multiple disasters it announces (ecological disaster, unraveling societies, growing insecurity). The only expectations that still seem operational are those of a technological future or a post-humanism. Societies need to take ownership of their present and future and fill it with meaning. Can it be done without necessarily reactivating the myth of progress? How to invent an alternative regime of historicity that breaks with the teleological vision of history and promotes a rise in humanity. The lecture of Felwine Sarr will explore some of these issues and propose paths to re-engage the adventure of meanings. 

Felwine Sarr is a humanist, philosopher, economist, and musician and the Anne-Marie Bryan Chair in French and Francophone Studies at Duke University. He is the author of Afrotopia (University of Minnessota Press, 2019, tr. by Drew S. Burk). Felwine Sarr taught at the University of Gaston-Berger in Saint Louis, Senegal, where he was previously Dean of its Economics and Management department. His research focuses on economic policies, the development economy, econometrics, epistemology, and the history of religious ideas.

This opening lecture will be moderated by our Director, Marie-Laure Salles. 

This event can be joined online or in-person and will be recorded and made available on the Institute's YouTube channel.

PLEASE NOTE: Access to indoor public events is limited to attendees with a Swiss or European COVID certificate. In addition, face masks must be worn to all in-person events at the Graduate Institute.