Come hear some great poets! Click to see the whole line up for the Fall series. 

Poetry Reading

March 27, 2014    7:00 pm

Laura Cronk, Jennifer Michael Hecht, Christina Pugh, and Rachel Zucker

Readings by Laura Cronk (“Having Been an Accomplice,” Persea, 2012), Jennifer Michael Hecht (“Who Said,” Copper Canyon, 2013), Christina Pugh (“Grains of the Voice,” TriQuarterly, 2013), and Rachel Zucker (“The Pedestrians,” Wave Books, 2014). Pictured: Rachel Zucker

Location: Lillian Vernon Creative Writers House, 58 West 10th Street, between 5th and 6th Avenues

Road to Reason: A Skeptic's Guide to the 21st Century 

I'll be on TV and online on this show on March second, 2014.

We'll be talking about Stay, Doubt: A History, and more!

I'll post the link when it is up.

Current episodes can be seen now at the above link. Very interesting show.

This February 25th I'll be doing a talk at NYU with Mitch Stephens, who has a new book called, Imagine There's No Heaven. We will talk about all manner of things related to the questioning of religion in history and today. There will be a book signing for both of us and wine and snacks. Come out if you can!

REGISTER HERE: http://action.centerforinquiry.net/site/Calendar?id=104141&view=Detail

Stay: A History of Suicide and the Philosophies Against It

Worldwide, more people die by suicide than by murder, and many more are left behind to grieve. Despite distressing statistics that show suicide rates rising, the subject, long a taboo, is infrequently talked about. In this sweeping intellectual and cultural history, poet and historian Jennifer Michael Hecht channels her grief for two friends lost to suicide into a search for history’s most persuasive arguments against the irretrievable act, arguments she hopes to bring back into public consciousness. From the Stoics and the Bible to Dante, Shakespeare, Wittgenstein, and such twentieth-century writers as John Berryman, Hecht recasts the narrative of our “secular age” in new terms. She shows how religious prohibitions against self-killing were replaced by the Enlightenment’s insistence on the rights of the individual, even when those rights had troubling applications. This transition, she movingly argues, resulted in a profound cultural and moral loss: the loss of shared, secular, logical arguments against suicide. By examining how people in other times have found powerful reasons to stay alive when suicide seems a tempting choice, she makes a persuasive intellectual and moral case against suicide.

Jennifer Michael Hecht is the author of three history books, including the best-selling Doubt: A History, and three volumes of poetry. Her work has won major awards in intellectual history and in poetry. Hecht teaches poetry at the New School University in Manhattan and lives in Brooklyn, NY.

* Public Admission + Stay book $26
* FOC Admission + Stay book $24
* Public Admission $5 advance registration / $7 at the door
* FOC Admission Free (Registration required) 

Support the Center with your book purchase. 

The venue is wheelchair accessible. People with disabilities who anticipate needing accommodations or who have questions about physical access may email sdavis@centerforinquiry.net in advance of the event. 

REGISTER HERE: http://action.centerforinquiry.net/site/Calendar?id=104141&view=Detail