A GUIDED EXPLORATION
The Web of Meaning - A Guided Exploration
With Jeremy Lent
Jeremy Lent - The Web of Meaning - A Guided Exploration
A 6-week online interactive course hosted by Programs in Earth Literacies and taught by Jeremy Lent, covering the themes from his recently published book The Web of Meaning: Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our Place in the Universe.
As our civilization careens toward a precipice of climate breakdown, ecological destruction, and gaping inequality, people are losing their existential moorings. Our dominant worldview of disconnection has passed its expiration date. It's not just dangerous—it's based on a series of flawed assumptions that have been superseded by modern scientific findings.
The Web of Meaning offers a coherent and intellectually solid foundation for an alternative worldview based on deep interconnectedness, showing how modern scientific knowledge echoes the ancient wisdom of earlier cultures.
This course will cover the book’s central themes. Weaving together findings from modern systems thinking, evolutionary biology, and cognitive neuroscience with insights from Buddhism, Taoism, and Indigenous knowledge, it will offer a rigorous and integrated way of understanding our place in the cosmos that can serve as a philosophical foundation for a life-affirming future.
Following the book’s design, the course will be structured as six deep and interactive investigations into the existential questions asked at some point by every human being:
- Who Am I?
- Where Am I?
- What Am I?
- How Should I Live?
- Why Am I? and finally,
- Where Are We Going?
In each case, we will see how the answers provided by the dominant worldview are based on faulty foundations. Each week we will explore the rich and awe-inspiring pathways invited by an alternative worldview based on recognizing the intricate interrelationships that link our lives to those in our community, to all of humanity, and to the entire living Earth.
Each 2 hour class will consist of presentations, breakout groups, and full group discussions. There will also be an online platform provided for group interaction between the weekly classes.
Class 1 | Who Am I? | Tuesday, November 2
Class 2 | Where Am I? | Tuesday, November 9
Class 3 | What Am I? | Tuesday, November 16
Class 4 | How Should I Live? | Tuesday, November 23
Class 5 | Why Am I? | Tuesday, November 30
Class 6 | Where Are We Going? | Tuesday, December 7
Jeremy Lent, described by Guardian journalist George Monbiot as “one of the greatest thinkers of our age,” is an author and speaker whose work investigates the underlying causes of our civilization’s existential crisis, and explores pathways toward a life-affirming future. His award-winning book, The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity’s Search for Meaning, examines the way humans have made meaning from the cosmos from hunter-gatherer times to the present day. His new book, The Web of Meaning: Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our Place in the Universe, offers a solid foundation for an integrative worldview that could lead humanity to a sustainable, flourishing future. He is founder of the nonprofit Liology Institute and writes topical articles exploring the deeper patterns of political and cultural developments at Patterns of Meaning.
Author website: jeremylent.com
Buy The Web of Meaning: USA | Canada | UK | Bookshop.org
NOTE: Registration is for the complete course. It is expected that participants will attend all classes. If, however, circumstances require missing a class, a recording will be made available to watch prior to the following week’s class. Although not required, it is recommended that participants read the book beforehand. The course will, however, be self-explanatory, and those who are unable to read the book in advance are still encouraged to register.