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Empathy and Historical Understanding

March 30, 2022

Thomas Kohut

German historian Thomas Kohut is the Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III Professor of History at Williams College and author of "Empathy and the Historical Understanding of the Human Past" (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2020). Drawing on examples from 20th-century German and Holocaust history, Kohut argues that the deliberate, self-reflective use of empathy is a legitimate and important mode of historical inquiry.

His talk at the College of the Holy Cross is part of the Colloquia of the Department of Philosophy, and co-sponsored by Department of History and the McFarland Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture with support from the Rehm Family Fund.