Amanda Anderson lecture: the Slow Time of Rumination

Some of the most influential frameworks for understanding human thought—in psychology, in moral and political philosophy, and in cognitive science—have failed to recognize the quality, form, and significance of slow, persistent ruminative processes oriented toward experiences of moral shock or disturbance. Such experiences include, but are not limited to, profound loss, grief, regret, or injury, including those fundamental assaults on dignity we might designate as status-injury. Drawing on literature, psychology, and philosophy, I demonstrate that rumination is a productive moral process and not merely a psychological symptom of oversensitivity or trauma endured.

Lecture (11.00am-12.30pm) to be followed by a casual lunch (12.30pm-1.30pm).

Amanda Anderson is Andrew W. Mellon Professor of English and Humanities at Brown University. Her research focuses on broad questions of intellectual history, disciplinary formation, and the relations among literature, moral life, and politics. Her recent books include Rumination in Life and Literature: A Vindication (forthcoming, 2027); Humanities Theory (2025; with Simon During); Character: Three Inquiries in Literary Studies (2019; with Rita Felski and Toril Moi), Psyche and Ethos: Moral Life After Psychology (2018), Bleak Liberalism (2016), and The Way We Argue Now: A Study in the Cultures of Theory (2006).  She served as the director of the Cogut Humanities Institute from 2015 to 2026 and is the faculty director of the Cogut Institute’s Doctoral Certificate in Collaborative Humanities and team-teaches its capstone Project Development Workshop.