An evening with New York Times columnist and author Dan Barry and clinical ethicist and author Lydia Dugdale, MD, MAR
Perhaps the oldest and most elusive question facing humans. Suffering is always with us—it shapes our lives at every level, even as we continue to develop unprecedented ways to alleviate pain and anesthetize suffering, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. If avoidable, is suffering now pointless, or can we still find meaning and dignity in it? What does suffering teach us about being human and being alive?
Dan Barry is a reporter and columnist for the New York Times. In 1994 he was part of an investigative team at the Providence Journal that won the Pulitzer Prize for a series of articles on Rhode Island’s justice system. He is the author of the memoir, Pull Me Up, a collection of his “About New York” columns, The Boys in the Bunk, and the Bottom of the 33rd, which won the PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing, and other titles.
Lydia Dugdale MD, MAR (ethics), is the Dorothy L. and Daniel H. Silberberg Professor of Medicine at the Columbia University Medical Center and Director of the Center for Clinical Medical Ethics. The author of The Lost Art of Dying: Reviving Forgotten Wisdom, she also serves as Co-Director of Clinical Ethics at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Irving Medical Center.
About the Roots: Dialogues for the Common Good series:
What is the spark of human cooperation? How does beauty bind its beholders? Why do we read, write, and seek the truth together—even if our search never ends?
The current cultural moment is marked by polarization, distrust, and a breakdown in civil discourse, which combine to limit opportunities for the kind of meaningful conversations vital to flourishing human relationships and the health of society. But even amid the soundbite-and-spectacle quality of public discourse today, we perceive a latent desire for depth, dialogue, and critical thinking. We believe we can contribute to meeting this desire, both by hosting intelligent exchanges on fundamental questions with renowned speakers and by challenging our audiences to practice a posture of open-minded dialogue while they participate in these convenings.
This project, a collaboration between Columbia’s Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary and Commonweal, convenes a range of thinkers for a series of public discussions grounded in philosophy, theology, and the humanities. The aim is not to defend specific positions or provide inarguable conclusions. Instead we seek to invite reflection, provoke conversation, and inspire action—a mode of meeting the political, moral, and existential challenges of our time.