The Legacy of Ernest Becker: Death, Ideologies, and Cultures

October 2, 2015
Co-presented by SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement, FASS, J.S. Woodsworth Chair in the Humanities, Department of Psychology, Institute for the Humanities at SFU & the Ernest Becker Foundation.
Keynote Speaker | Sheldon Solomon, author of Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life.
This conference looked at the legacy of Ernest Becker's work with regard to its applicability to our current geopolitical situation. It reviewed the ways we defend ourselves against the awareness of our mortality through allegiance to an ideology. Any threat to the viability of the ideology is equivalent to the death of one's protective meanings. Consequently, much geopolitical conflict is an attempt to establish dominance over competing narratives.
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THE KEYNOTE | SHELDON SOLOMON
Sheldon Solomon is the public intellectual most associated with presenting and developing Becker's work. He is a very engaging speaker who appeals to both lay and professional audiences. Far from being abstract and pedantic, Sheldon's style is vital, rigorous, and engaging. He is a Professor in the Psychology Department of Skidmore College, NY. He and his associates have done much to empirically support Becker's theories.
Another speaker associated with the Becker Foundation is David Loy, a Buddhist scholar who has published numerous books, including Lack and Transcendence: The Problem of Death and Life in Psychotherapy, Existentialism, and Buddhism. He is currently located in Boulder, Colorado, and has a keen interest in the conference's themes.
This conference will add a wrinkle to the traditional format. At the end of Saturday's proceedings the participants will be assigned to conversation seminars where they will have an opportunity to express their views, integrate what they've heard, and a chance to form new relationships.
ABOUT ERNEST BECKER
Ernest Becker was one of SFU’s most illustrious scholars. He was and remains well known for his humanistic-existential approach to psychology, especially his studies of life and death, the human condition, and human motivation. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 1974 for his book, The Denial of Death. His life and work continue to be celebrated and his ideas developed and applied to a wide range of contemporary issues, from terrorism to environmental concern. One of the most popular contemporary programs of research in social psychology, “Terror Management Theory,” is based on his ideas concerning the human experience of, and our reactions to, mortality. The Ernest Becker Foundation preserves and perpetuates his work, and a seven-time best documentary award winning film, “Flight from Death: The Quest for Immortality” was produced in 2003, a film that uses Becker’s ideas to examine humankind’s complex relationship with death on psychological, interpersonal, spiritual, and sociocultural levels.