Barbara Ehrenreich on Optimism
21 november 2018, 19:30–21:30
De Duif, Prinsengracht 756, 1017 LD Amsterdam
For English, see below.
Schrijfster en journaliste Barbara Ehrenreih, winnaar van de Erasmus Prijs 2018, gaat in gesprek met cabaretier en interviewer Raoul Heertje over haar werk.
Naar eigen zeggen heeft Barbara Ehrenreich een hooggevoelige 'bullshit radar', en in de loop van haar carrière heeft ze regelmatig de cult van positief denken aangevallen. Zoals ze zelf op eerste hand meemaakte, speelt positief denken een belangrijke rol in gezondheidszorg, waarover zij in haar boek Smile or Die schrijft. Volgens de regels die door medepatiënten op internetforums beschreven zijn, zou een borstkanker diagnose haar leven verbeteren.
In haar recente boek Natural Causes, onderzoekt Ehrenreich de weerstand tegen ouder worden. Ze beschrijft hoe we eigenlijk geen invloed hebben op dat onomkeerbare proces, en dat we beter af zijn als we die fixatie op onze gezondheid loslaten.
Humor en een gevoel van perspectief zijn haar wapens van keuze in het aanvallen van positief denken. Raoul Heertje praat met Ehrenreich over haar optimisme en realisme.
Klik hier om je aan te melden.
Writer and journalist Barbara Ehrenreich, winner of the 2018 Erasmus Prize, talks to comedian and interviewer Raoul Heertje about her work.
By her own account, Barbara Ehrenreich has a highly attuned ‘bullshit radar’, and over her career she has frequently attacked the cult of positive thinking. As she experienced first-hand, positive thinking plays an important role in healthcare, which she tellingly described in her celebrated book Smile or Die. According to the rules defined by fellow patients on internet forums, a breast cancer diagnosis would only improve her life.
In her recent book Natural Causes, Ehrenreich examines the resistance to growing old. She describes how we have scarcely any influence on that irreversible process, and we would be better off abandoning our fixation on health.
Humour and a sense of perspective are her weapons of choice in attacking positive thinking. Raoul Heertje talks to Ehrenreich about her optimism and realism.
About the speakers
Barbara Ehrenreich (1941) made her international breakthrough with the book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America in 2001, for which she spent months trying to survive on her earnings from so-called ‘unskilled work’ in the United States. Other influential books by Ehrenreich are: Bait and Switch, the (futile) Pursuit of the American Dream (2005), about the flip side of the American dream; and Smile or Die (2009), about the dangers of positive thinking at the expense of, among other things, adequate healthcare.
Raoul Heertje (1963) is a stand-up comedian, television presenter, writer and entrepreneur. He is the founder of Comedytrain, the company of stand-up comedians that introduced this art form to the Netherlands in 1990. Together with his brother Eric Heertje, he founded the Toomler comedy café in 1995. He was also a team captain on the television show Dit was het nieuws, and has performed his shows in the Netherlands, US and England. He was an interviewer on the television programme Wintergasten (the international version of the Dutch interview series Zomergasten) and has written for various television programmes.
Click here to apply.
Schrijfster en journaliste Barbara Ehrenreih, winnaar van de Erasmus Prijs 2018, gaat in gesprek met cabaretier en interviewer Raoul Heertje over haar werk.
Naar eigen zeggen heeft Barbara Ehrenreich een hooggevoelige 'bullshit radar', en in de loop van haar carrière heeft ze regelmatig de cult van positief denken aangevallen. Zoals ze zelf op eerste hand meemaakte, speelt positief denken een belangrijke rol in gezondheidszorg, waarover zij in haar boek Smile or Die schrijft. Volgens de regels die door medepatiënten op internetforums beschreven zijn, zou een borstkanker diagnose haar leven verbeteren.
In haar recente boek Natural Causes, onderzoekt Ehrenreich de weerstand tegen ouder worden. Ze beschrijft hoe we eigenlijk geen invloed hebben op dat onomkeerbare proces, en dat we beter af zijn als we die fixatie op onze gezondheid loslaten.
Humor en een gevoel van perspectief zijn haar wapens van keuze in het aanvallen van positief denken. Raoul Heertje praat met Ehrenreich over haar optimisme en realisme.
Klik hier om je aan te melden.
Writer and journalist Barbara Ehrenreich, winner of the 2018 Erasmus Prize, talks to comedian and interviewer Raoul Heertje about her work.
By her own account, Barbara Ehrenreich has a highly attuned ‘bullshit radar’, and over her career she has frequently attacked the cult of positive thinking. As she experienced first-hand, positive thinking plays an important role in healthcare, which she tellingly described in her celebrated book Smile or Die. According to the rules defined by fellow patients on internet forums, a breast cancer diagnosis would only improve her life.
In her recent book Natural Causes, Ehrenreich examines the resistance to growing old. She describes how we have scarcely any influence on that irreversible process, and we would be better off abandoning our fixation on health.
Humour and a sense of perspective are her weapons of choice in attacking positive thinking. Raoul Heertje talks to Ehrenreich about her optimism and realism.
About the speakers
Barbara Ehrenreich (1941) made her international breakthrough with the book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America in 2001, for which she spent months trying to survive on her earnings from so-called ‘unskilled work’ in the United States. Other influential books by Ehrenreich are: Bait and Switch, the (futile) Pursuit of the American Dream (2005), about the flip side of the American dream; and Smile or Die (2009), about the dangers of positive thinking at the expense of, among other things, adequate healthcare.
Raoul Heertje (1963) is a stand-up comedian, television presenter, writer and entrepreneur. He is the founder of Comedytrain, the company of stand-up comedians that introduced this art form to the Netherlands in 1990. Together with his brother Eric Heertje, he founded the Toomler comedy café in 1995. He was also a team captain on the television show Dit was het nieuws, and has performed his shows in the Netherlands, US and England. He was an interviewer on the television programme Wintergasten (the international version of the Dutch interview series Zomergasten) and has written for various television programmes.
Click here to apply.