Abstract of the lectures

Our world’s boundaries shrink each year as trade, communication, and culture globalize. And as countries, ethnic groups, and religious structures come in closer contact, conflict continues to escalate, highlighting the difficulty of bringing together people of different origins, faiths, and opinions. A sense and practice of tolerance would seem to hold the key to breaking down such boundaries, yet tolerance has its own limits, particularly in face of the intolerable. The lectures will consider how differing concepts of tolerance have developed and also the political, religious, and social concerns that frame tolerance’s boundaries.