May 22: Michael Lazarus—Absolute Ethical Life
Presented by 192 Books, Michael Lazarus in conversation with Martin Hägglund and J. M. Bernstein to discuss his new book Absolute Ethical Life: Aristotle, Hegel and Marx (Stanford University Press, 2025)
This event will take place in person at 192 Books at 192 10th Ave on Thursday, May 22nd at 7:00 PM ET. Seating is limited and will be first come, first served. The discussion will also be streamed directly on this page. There is no login required. A recording will be archived.
Books will be available for sale after the conversation.
Michael Lazarus—Absolute Ethical Life: Aristotle, Hegel and Marx (Stanford University Press, 2025)
Karl Marx gave us not just a critique of the political economy of capital but a way of confronting the impoverished ethical quality of life we face under capitalism. Interpreting Marx anew as an ethical thinker, Michael Lazarus places him in close dialogue with Aristotle and Hegel. Lazarus traces the ethical and political dimensions of Marx's work missed by Hannah Arendt and Alasdair MacIntyre, two of the most profound critics of modern politics and ethics. Ultimately, the book claims that Marx's value-form theory is both a continuation of Aristotelian and Hegelian themes and at the same time his most distinctive theoretical achievement. With a robust critique of capitalism derived from the determinations of what Marx calls the "form of value," Lazarus argues for an ethical life beyond capital.
Michael Lazarus is Visiting Postdoctoral Fellow at Yale University and Deakin University Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Alfred Deakin Institute. His research in social and political theory, ethics, and political economy has appeared in many academic and non-academic publications (including Jacobin Magazine).
Martin Hägglund is the Birgit Baldwin Professor of Humanities at Yale University. His bestselling and widely acclaimed 2019 book, This Life, was awarded the prestigious René Wellek Prize. He has lectured at venues around the world and his books have been translated into fifteen languages. A volume devoted to his work, A New Hegelian Marxism: Debating Martin Hägglund’s This Life, ed. Michael Lazarus, is forthcoming from Routledge.
J. M. Bernstein is the University Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research. His research has focused on Hegel, critical theory, aesthetics, and ethics. Among his books are The Fate of Art: Aesthetic Alienation from Kant to Derrida and Adorno (1992) and Adorno: Disenchantment and Ethics (2002). He is working on a book entitled Earth Justice: An Emergency Ethics for the 21st Century.