Renewing Hope: Finding Our Way Through a Crisis of Meaning
- When
- Thursday, November 19, 202611:00 AM – 12:15 PM MSTAdd to calendarGoogle Calendar
- Where
- Norlin Library British & Irish Studies Room (Norlin Library M549, 5th Floor)1157 18th Street, Boulder, CO 80309Open in Maps
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About
When: Thursday, November 19, 2026 Time: 11:00 am–12:15 pm Where: British & Irish Studies Room (Norlin Library M549, 5th Floor)
About the Lecture
Many people now sense that the troubles of free societies run deeper than politics or economics: polarization, censorship, and a loss of faith in freedom itself point to a crisis of meaning. Drawing on the philosopher-scientist Michael Polanyi, historian Lenore T. Ealy traces that crisis from the Enlightenment’s competing revolutions through twentieth-century totalitarianism to the present, showing how attempts to control meaning, whether through ideology, technocracy, or state power, undermine both truth and liberty. She argues that science, faith, and freedom are best understood as practices of exploration rather than control, and that hope means giving up the wish to master the future so we can meet reality, and one another, with humility and courage.
About the Speaker
Lenore T. Ealy, Ph.D., serves as Vicerrectora Internacional at Universidad Francisco Marroquín in Guatemala and is founding president of The Philanthropic Enterprise, a research institute dedicated to understanding how philanthropy and voluntary social cooperation promote human flourishing. She previously served as senior fellow for communities at the Charles Koch Institute and has held program roles at the Heritage Foundation and the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. Ealy earned her PhD in the history of moral and political thought from Johns Hopkins University, an MA in history from the University of Alabama, and a BS in education from Auburn University. She is co-editor of the book series Polycentricity: Studies in Institutional Diversity and Voluntary Governance and has co-edited several volumes, including Commerce and Community: Ecologies of Social Cooperation. She currently serves as Secretary of The Philadelphia Society.