<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div>Greetings.</div><div><br></div>The UW Critical Media Lab and the Department of Psychology are pleased to invite you to an animated lecture by Sheldon Solomon, Professor of Psychology and the Courtney and Steven Ross Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at Skidmore College. Solomon is one of the founders of Terror Management Theory (TMT), which posits that human behaviour and the formation of human cultures are rooted in our universal denial of death. As the cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker once put it, humans are the only creatures whose sole purpose is to deny their creatureliness, which includes their mortality. Becker's convincing arguments earned him a Pulitzer Prize in 1974 for his book _Denial of Death_. More recently, by applying Becker's theories of death denial to experiments in social psychology, Terror Management Theorists have generated over 300 distinct studies that investigate how human motivation may be rooted in the denial of death and the quest for immortality. Such studies are being conducted here at UW in the departments of Psychology and perhaps surprisingly in English, in the context of technology and rhetorics of immortality.<div><br></div><div>Solomon is an extremely engaging and energetic speaker, known for his tie-dyed shirts, rapid-fire delivery, and broad interdisciplinary range. He was featured in the film _Flight from Death: The Quest for Immortality_, which will be screened at the Critical Media Lab as a "warm-up" for the lecture. The screening will be followed by an informal discussion on the topic of "Technology and Immortality."</div><div><br></div><div><div>FILM SCREENING</div><div>_Flight from Death: The Quest for Immortality_ (2006, 85 min.)</div><div>Tuesday, December 1, 7:30 pm</div><div>Critical Media Lab</div><div>191 King Street West, directly across from Kitchener City Hall</div></div><div><br></div><div>LECTURE</div><div>Sheldon Solomon, "Teach These Souls to Fly: The Psychological Function of Supernatural Beliefs"</div><div>Friday, December 4, Arts Lecture Hall 124</div><div><br></div><div><div>The video linked below will give you a good idea of Solomon's "ethos":</div><div><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KS8DnYwnnF4">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KS8DnYwnnF4</a></div><div><br></div><div>And here is Solomon (actually wearing a tie) explaining TMT:</div><div><a href="http://revver.com/video/13408/terror-management-theory-defined/">http://revver.com/video/13408/terror-management-theory-defined/</a></div><div><br></div><div>Web site for _Flight From Death_ film:</div><div><a href="http://www.flightfromdeath.com/">http://www.flightfromdeath.com/</a></div><div><br></div><div>We hope to see you at either or both of these events, which are guaranteed to provoke and stimulate.</div><div><br></div><div>----<br><div apple-content-edited="true"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div>Professor Marcel O'Gorman, PhD<br>Director, Critical Media Lab<br>Department of English<br>University of Waterloo<br>Hagey Hall<br>Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3G1<br>Tel: 519 888 4567 x32946<br>Fax: 519 746 5788</div><div><a href="http://criticalmedia.uwaterloo.ca">http://criticalmedia.uwaterloo.ca</a></div><div><a href="http://marcelogorman.net">http://marcelogorman.net</a></div><div><br></div></div></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"> </div><br></div></div></body></html>