Simon(e) van Saarloos

Following on from Philipp Blom and Safae el Khannoussi, Simon(e) van Saarloos has the honour of opening the new season.The Dutch-American philosopher debuted in 2015 with the much-discussed book The Monogamous Drama. Since then, numerous publications have followed, including Etc. The Wilders Trial (2018) - a meticulous account of the criminal trial against Geert Wilders - Remembering Remembered (2019), and Against Ageism: A Queer Manifesto (2023). Currently, they are a doctoral candidate in rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley. Van Saarloos writes out of dissatisfaction with the world as it is, “because there are abstractions and phenomena hanging in the air for which we have no language yet.” During this opening lecture, Van Saarloos explores this season’s theme Be Embraced: how can we resolve disparities by embracing apparent contradictions in our thinking?