Lasch-Quinn explores the meaning of life in new book
In her new book, “Ars Vitae: The Fate of
Inwardness and the Return of the Ancient Arts of Living” (Notre Dame Press), Elisabeth
Lasch-Quinn, professor of history in the Maxwell School, explores Americans’
stirring interest in ancient Greco-Roman philosophies including Cynicism,
Platonism, Gnosticism, Stoicism and Epicureanism, and whether they can offer any
alternatives to contemporary consumer culture as a means to happiness and
well-being.
“Ars Vitae,”
Latin for “the Art of Life,” is an ambitious historical project connecting ancient
philosophy to our modern way of life. Using a variety of films, manuals, popular
culture, and scholarly works, Lasch-Quinn traces the ancient philosophical ways
of living, juxtaposing them to America’s age of self-focused consumerism. She
asks whether ancient philosophies in their new forms contradict or harden our
approach to inwardness in society today. “Ars Vitae”digs deep into the roots
of the meaning of life and challenges our normative ways of being.
Lasch-Quinn is a senior research associate in the Campbell Public Affairs Institute at the Maxwell
School. She is also a non-residential visiting faculty fellow of the Institute for
Advanced Studies in Culture’s Foundation, In Media Res, at the University of
Virginia. Her current research interests focus on how individuals and societies
over time address the question of how to live, particularly as it relates to
self-worth, well-being and happiness. Lasch-Quinn’s other research interests
include historical race relations in America, the arts, Platonism and
Neoplatonism, Ancient Greco-Roman philosophy, and European and American
intellectual history. In 2017, the Department of History at Syracuse University
awarded Lasch-Quinn with the Frank and Helen Pellicone Faculty Scholar Award.
October 16, 2020 | Chad Chambers, PhD candidate in geography