This seminar explores how the Roman philosopher-politician, Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c. 2 BCE-65 CE), reflects in his Latin philosophical writings on the value of time in life, the importance of dwelling on the fact of our mortality through the different stages of our existence, and on how that perspective affects our ethical life-choices and outlook. Seneca was of course a privileged member of an aristocratic class in a slave society, and his life-reflections therefore presuppose an elite modus vivendi. But how might his writings still inform our own 21st-century lives in an age of AI, deep social unrest, economic stresses, and the hyper-speed of our existence?

On Wednesday, October 14, at 6 PM, join Dr. Gareth Williams (Columbia) for this talk on Seneca and time as the second part of our Great Books for the Age of AI series this semester.