Woodward Distinguished Lecture Series: Sebastian Junger

The CMCH is pleased to welcome Sebastian Junger, Award-Winning Journalist, Director, and Best-Selling Author of The Perfect Storm & TRIBE, to deliver this year’s Charles Guilford Woodward Lecture.

Junger is the internationally acclaimed, best-selling author of WAR, The Perfect Storm, A Death in Belmont and Fire. He is also the acclaimed director of the documentary films Restrepo and Korengal. As a contributing editor to Vanity Fair and as a contributor to ABC News, he has covered major international news stories and has been awarded the National Magazine Award and a SAIS Novartis Prize for Journalism.

Junger will discuss his most recent works, including TRIBE and Freedom. Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging, takes readers on an investigation of the experiences of veterans and proposes that a major cause of pain is not being at war but coming home. We all have a strong instinct to belong to small groups defined by clear purpose and understanding -“tribes.” In TRIBE, Junger demonstrates how this tribal connection has been largely lost in modern society. He examines PTSD as a side effect of soldiers leaving the close bonds they’ve formed in their military platoons and returning to a disconnected modern society and argues that regaining a sense of closeness may be the key to our psychological survival. His most recent book, Freedom, examines a tension that lies at the heart of what it means to be human: the conflict between community and freedom.

Doors open at 5:45 PM. Come early to view CMCH’s exhibition, Common Struggle, Individual Experience: An Exhibition About Mental Health.

Copies of Junger’s books will be on sale during the event courtesy of River Bend Bookshop. He will be available for book signing after the event. Light refreshments will be provided.

This event is free for CMCH members and $15 for non-members. Reserve your tickets now!

Questions? Contact Adult Programs Manager Natalie Belanger via email at natalie_belanger@chs.org, or call (860) 236-5621 x289.

Image credit: Sebastian Junger © David Beyda