Searching for Meaning in Life

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

i'm no better than your students who are going to fascinate about this. But i want to get h other things out of the way first. I meanyou you touched on this fact that when we do talk about searches for ways to fill our lives, ways to address the lacks that we have. There's an infinite number of ways that we can address this. And some of them might be very high brow, and some of them may not be high brow. You could be a fan of a sports team, or you could like, gossiping with your friends, or just, you know, going to mac donald's or whatever. Theres there's different sort of activities

Neuroscience has given us great insights into how our brains work. But there is still room for purely humanistic disciplines to help us think through our thoughts and emotions, not to mention the meaning of our lives. Mari Ruti is a professor of English literature, with expertise in critical theory, gender studies, and psychoanalysis, especially the work of French theorist Jacques Lacan. We talk about the psychological drive that is motivated by what Lacan calls “lack,” which is related to “desire.” We use this as a way to think about such essential human experiences as mourning, creativity, and love. (We don’t talk about love enough here on the podcast.)

Support Mindscape on Patreon.

Mari Ruti received her Ph.D. in comparative literature from Harvard University. She is currently a Distinguished Professor of critical theory and gender and sexuality studies at the University of Toronto. She is the co-editor of the Psychoanalytic Horizons book series for Bloomsbury.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.