Exhibits & Events
Cavell, the Ordinary, and the Art of Living
“A divided self and a doubled world [...] tends to express disappointment with the world as it is, [...] and perhaps to lodge the demand or desire for a reform or transfiguration of the world.”
— Stanley Cavell
Join us at Public Trust for Cavell, the Ordinary, and the Art of Living, a conversation on Tuesday, November 17, 2026 from 5-7pm marking the centennial of Stanley Cavell’s birth. The event will feature philosophers Sandra Laugier and Richard Shusterman in conversation, and will be moderated by Daniele Lorenzini and Jean-Michel Rabaté. Presented in partnership with the Department of Philosophy and sponsored by the SNF Paideia Program at the University of Pennsylvania.
About the Program
Marking the centennial of Stanley Cavell’s birth, this event brings together renowned philosophers Sandra Laugier and Richard Shusterman who will explore the continuing significance of Cavell’s philosophy and its intersections with their work. From ordinary language philosophy and the ethics of the ordinary to aesthetic experience, pragmatism, popular culture, and philosophy as an art of living, the conversation will revisit Cavell’s distinctive understanding of the relationship between philosophy and everyday life.
Laugier and Shusterman will explore how Cavell’s thought opens new paths for thinking about the ordinary and the extraordinary, the possibilities of self-transformation, and the role of philosophy in our lives. And because Cavell famously made film an object for serious and even groundbreaking philosophical investigation, the two philosophers will discuss the role of photography, film, and video in their personal itineraries.
About the Speakers
Sandra Laugier is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. She has published widely in French, English, Italian, and German on ordinary language philosophy, moral and political philosophy, and popular culture. She translated Stanley Cavell’s work into French and is co-editor of his Nachlass, including Here and There(Harvard University Press, 2022). A member of the American Philosophical Society, she has held three appointments at the Institut Universitaire de France and was Principal Investigator of the ERC Advanced Grant DEMOSERIES (2020–2025). Her recent books include Wittgenstein: The Senses of Use (University of Chicago Press, 2025), TV-Philosophy: How TV Series Change Our Thinking (University of Exeter Press, 2023), and Why We Need Ordinary Language Philosophy (University of Chicago Press, 2013, 2024).
Richard Shusterman is the Dorothy F. Schmidt Eminent Scholar in the Humanities at Florida Atlantic University and Director of its Center for Body, Mind, and Culture. His Pragmatist Aesthetics has been published in sixteen languages, and his somaesthetics trilogy with Cambridge University Press comprises Body Consciousness (2008), Thinking through the Body (2012), and Ars Erotica (2021). His most recent books in English are Philosophy and the Art of Writing(Routledge, 2022) and The Critical Shusterman (SUNY Press, 2025), a reader of his key texts. His work is the subject of several books, including Alexander Kremer’s Richard Shusterman’s Somaesthetics (Bloomsbury, 2026). The French government named him Chevalier dans l’ordre des Palmes académiques for his philosophical and cultural work.
