Are you gripped by fear or plagued by worry? Does excessive concern about the future interfere with work, school, or other aspects of your everyday life? Speak with your doctor to see if Future Café might be right for you.
Anxieties crop up across a wide range of scales, with a multiplicity of personal, social, political, and economic valences: Take anxiety as a mental illness that demands psychotherapeutic or psychiatric treatment when diagnosed in a patient. Pair it with advertisements for anti-anxiety medications, exercises, practices, “cures,” and lifestyles that circulate televisually, digitally, and by word of mouth. Consider anxieties about terror and the safety of the populace, which impel governments to pursue far-reaching national security plans that increase surveillance and potentially infringe on citizens’ rights. Think about far-fetched, yet politically animating, “great replacement” anxieties about the genocide of the white race, the transgendering of children by elites, unchecked immigration, and the cultural destruction of the West.
How can anxiety be destructive? Obstructive? What might the diverse deployments of anxiety as a concept have in common? Do they suggest we live in a particularly anxious historical moment? What does it mean to live with anxiety? What might less anxious times feel like? How might we allay our worries and live in securer, more contented times?
Future Café is a student-organized series that provides the opportunity and space for undergraduates to collectively imagine utopian possibilities and long-term futures. Join us for our next meeting to discuss what anxiety will look like 100, 500, or 5,000 years from now.
This event is free and open to all University of Chicago undergraduate students; registration is recommended.
