I really am not sure what is wrong with me.. I resolved to not give any more talks
until the manuscript of The Circle of Stupid was completed. It isn’t (quite). And here I am – posting information about three upcoming talks I’m doing – on the 9th October in Swindon, the 26th of October here in Cheltenham and Friday 20th November in London.

On the 9th October, I’ll be at Swindon Philosophical Society, to give them a sneak preview of my new book’s material, when I talk about The Circle of Stupid: Ethics Beyond Belief. Info about the event is here : https://swindonphilosophicalsociety.wordpress.com/about-2/ 

For the October 268h event – see the University publicity, or click HERE:

Dr David Webster will be presenting a public lecture with a Hallowe’en theme at the University of Gloucestershire on October 28. The free event at The Park campus is the latest in the University’s annual Public Lecture Series.

The Hallowe’en Lecture: Re-enchanting culture in a cynical world: Pagans, Satanists, Atheists, Fictional Religions and more, will explore issues from the secular adoption of Hallowe’en to emerging spiritual trends around the world.

Dr Webster said: “The lecture will consider whether these emerging trends can be seen as the means by which our cynical, suspicious and complex culture expresses its need for life to be something more than a drab series of repeated commercial transactions, culminating in pre-paid funeral plans.”

The event starts with registration and refreshments from 5pm. The lecture is from 6pm until 7pm. Please visit http://bit.ly/1Kx7y4f to book a place.

Then I’ll be spending the evening of November 20th at King’s College, London – with their Buddhism Research seminar series – on this topic:

Buddhism, Existentialism and The Blues: a meditation on the place of suffering in the intellectual imagination.

Buddhist thought is often characterised as excessively gloomy, spending its energy investigating the nature of dukkha, and the myriad ways in which both we and the universe we inhabit are flawed, imperfect and liable to get tangled in conditional processes with less than blissful outcomes.  Existentialist thought sees our impending death rush at us, through its haze of wine and Gauloises, with a terrible and absurd haste. The blues drags the wretched human condition over three to five minutes, from how I woke up this morning, to my beloved’s departure on the midnight train. This talk will seek to interweave these narratives such that we might find a common thread within them, and stumble along it towards something akin to the hope of human happiness and contentment.

Contact Pyi Phyo Kyaw on pyi.kyaw@kcl.ac.uk for time/location details!