Professor Benjamin Saltzman draws on literature, film, philosophy, art, and religion to explore why we turn away from human suffering.

Benjamin Saltzman on the ethics of averting one’s gaze.

Why do we turn away from human suffering? What does it mean to lower our heads in grief or cover our faces in shame? In this conversation, Deputy Dean of the Arts and Humanities and Professor of English Benjamin Saltzman explores one of humanity's most familiar yet enigmatic gestures through the lens of his new book, Turning Away: The Poetics of an Ancient Gesture.

Drawing on literature, film, philosophy, art, and religion—from Plato and Augustine to Marc Chagall, Langston Hughes, and the present day—Saltzman traces how acts of looking away have shaped our moral and political imagination for centuries. The result is a timely meditation on attention, empathy, and the complicated ethics of witnessing.

Image: A Burial at Ornans (1849–50) by Gustave Courbet.