A Passion for Waiting: Messianism, History, and the Jews: Foerster Lectures on the Immortality of the Soul

Lecture | October 24 | 4:10 p.m. | International House, Chevron Auditorium

Speaker: Leon Wieseltier, Literary Editor, The New Republic

Sponsor: Graduate Division

Leon Wieseltier will present the Foerster lecture on October 24, 2012 titled "A Passion for Waiting: Messianism, History, and the Jews." The lecture is free and open to the public. No tickets are required.

About Leon Wieseltier:

Leon Wieseltier is a well-known American writer, critic, and longstanding literary editor of The New Republic . Since the beginning of his tenure in 1983, he has published many influential articles in The New Republic and many other publications. For many years he has written the weekly and widely read “Washington Diarist” and is the author of several critically acclaimed volumes, including Against Identity (1996) and Nuclear War, Nuclear Peace (1983). His latest work, Kaddish (1998), a meditation on mortality, mourning, and the Jewish tradition, was highly praised and won the National Jewish Book Award and was translated into eight languages. Wieseltier has also published a number of translations of the works of Yehuda Amichai and other modern Hebrew poets in The New Republic, The New York Times, and The New Yorker. More recently, he edited and introduced a volume of Lionel Trilling's works titled The Moral Obligation to be Intelligent (2009).

Wieseltier was born in Brooklyn, New York, and was educated at Columbia College, Balliol College, Oxford, and Harvard University. From 1979 to 1982, he was a member of the Society of Fellows at Harvard. He is currently a member of the Editorial Board of the Jewish Review of Books.

Target audiences: Alumni, Faculty, Friends of the University, General Public, Staff, Students - Graduate, Students - Undergraduate

Open to audience: All Audiences

Event Contact: lectures@berkeley.edu, 510-643-7413