Belonging in the Modern World?

America, we are reliably told, is coming apart. Individuals are drifting off into isolation, or, just as bad, clinging to toxic forms of tribalism that rely on exclusion and enmity towards the other. Why is this happening? What are the deep cultural currents that make so many people experience contemporary life as a kind of exile? What would it look like to build a healthy culture where people can truly feel at home? These are some of the central questions taken up by Public Culture Project Director Ian Marcus Corbin’s new book, To Arrive Where We Started: Belonging in the Modern World. For a brief, informative summary, see this review from Kirkus. 

The book will be published by Yale University Press on June 16th, and we will gather in the Thompson Room, Barker Center, to celebrate and discuss. Corbin will be joined by Dr. Samuel Kimbriel, fellow philosopher, and Founding Director of the Aspen Institute’s Philosophy and Society Program. Harvard Book Store will be providing copies of the book for sale. Please join us!