16 April 2013

'Zero Degrees of Empathy' - Saturday Evening Lecture on 20th April

Tickets for the next installment of the University of Dundee's Saturday Evening Lecture Series have now completely sold out.

Almost 800 tickets have been snapped up for the talk, which will see Professor Simon Baron-Cohen examine empathy, cruelty and understanding at the Dalhousie Building on Saturday, 20th April.

His talk, 'Zero Degrees of Empathy' will provide a fascinating and challenging new look at the characteristics that make our behaviour uniquely human by drawing on evidence gathered from sources as diverse as Nazi concentration camps and modern school playgrounds.

"We have always struggled to explain why some people behave in the most evil way imaginable while others are completely self-sacrificing," he said.

"Is it possible that - rather than thinking in terms of 'good' and 'evil' - all of us instead lie somewhere on the empathy spectrum, and our position on the spectrum can be affected by both genes and our environments?"

Simon Baron-Cohen is Professor of Developmental Psychopathology at the University of Cambridge, and is renowned for his work on autism, including his early theory that autism involves degrees of 'mindblindness'. Professor Baron-Cohen is the author of several books, including 'Zero Degrees of Empathy: A New Understanding of Cruelty and Kindness'.

In it, he examines a variety of conditions in which the ability to empathise is reduced or lacking to hypothesise that violence occurs in empathy's absence with the implication that "evildoers" are somehow damaged rather than downright bad.

The Saturday Evening Lecture Series, which this year celebrates its 89th anniversary, is Scotland's oldest continuous free public lecture series. It attracts thousands of people each year to hear varied and thought-provoking lectures from prestigious, world-class speakers.

This tradition is continued in 2013, with talks from an exciting line-up of leading figures from the worlds of art, academia, literature and science.

Professor Baron-Cohen's talk takes place at 6pm on Saturday, 20th April in the Dalhousie Building, Old Hawkhill. This is the Graduates Council Annual Discovery Lecture for 2013, and a book signing and civic reception will follow the event.The Graduates Council Lecture is held in conjunction with Dundee City Council, and Lord Provost Bob Duncan will be in attendance at the event.

Overflow theatres will be in use and, as the main lecture theatre will be filled on a first come-first seated basis, patrons should be sure to arrive early if they would prefer to be seated there.

For media enquiries contact:
Grant Hill
Press Officer
University of Dundee
Nethergate, Dundee, DD1 4HN
TEL: 01382 384768
E-MAIL: g.hill@dundee.ac.uk
MOBILE: 07854 953277