What if …? Worrying and the Modern World
Francis O’Gorman

• Wednesday 8 June 2016, 7.40PM to 8:30pm
• Free admission
  Booking required
• Ron Cooke Hub, University of York (map|getting to campus)
• Wheelchair accessible

Event details

Why do we worry? Where did it come from? Why is the word itself only known to us in its current meaning from the middle of the 19th century? Francis O’Gorman, author of Worrying: A Literary and Cultural History, will examine the short history of worrying as a product of the busy, individual-centred world that modern capitalism has created.

Francis will also discuss the long history that sees worry as a result simply of being human and of having the ability to choose. Ranging across disciplines and historical periods, this talk will affirm worrying as the peculiarly moth-eaten sign of being a modern human being in the west.

About the speaker

Francis O'Gorman, a writer, academic and journalist from English, Irish, and Hungarian families, took his BA and DPhil degrees from the University of Oxford. He is currently a Professor in the School of English at the University of Leeds. The author or editor of 20 books mostly on English literature, he published Worrying: A Literary and Cultural History in 2015, which was a Guardian 'Book of the Week', a Sunday Times, 'Must Read', and a Bookbag 'History Book of the Year for 2015'. He is currently writing a book called Forgetfulness: A Cultural History for Bloomsbury.

Waterstones

The book will be available to buy from the Waterstones' stall at this event.

Tickets