Hallowe’en Lecture to explore spirituality

Dr David Webster will be presenting a public lecture with a Hallowe’en theme at the University of Gloucestershire on October 28.

The free event at The Park campus is the latest in the University’s annual Public Lecture Series.

The Hallowe’en Lecture: Re-enchanting culture in a cynical world: Pagans, Satanists, Atheists, Fictional Religions and more, will explore issues from the secular adoption of Hallowe’en to emerging spiritual trends around the world.

Dr Webster said: “The lecture will consider whether these emerging trends can be seen as the means by which our cynical, suspicious and complex culture expresses its need for life to be something more than a drab series of repeated commercial transactions, culminating in pre-paid funeral plans.”

Acting Head of Humanities, Dr Webster published Dispirited: How Contemporary Spirituality Makes Us Stupid, Selfish and Unhappy in 2012.

In addition to scholarly works on Buddhism and desire, the nature of belief and other topics in Buddhist studies and the Philosophy and Religion, Dr Webster has also written about the blues and death in Religions. He is also involved in the Teaching Across Religions of South Asia (TAROSA) project.

Dr Webster is passionate about e-learning and uses podcasts, e-resources and guest speakers via Skype to enhance his teaching. In 2014 he spoke at Facebook’s London headquarters to talk about the benefits of using social media to engage students. He maintains the Religion, Philosophy and Ethics blog and organises the https://philosvids.wordpress.com site with video-based resources for students, with materials ranging from those aimed at school audiences to research interviews.

The event starts with registration and refreshments from 5pm. The lecture is from 6pm until 7pm. Please visit http://bit.ly/1Kx7y4f to book a place.