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To Change Time: The Atman, The Soul, and The Mysteries of Embodiment by Richard Cohen, Professor and Chair of Religious Studies, UC San Diego

The Italian philosopher, Giorgio Agamben writes that the task of a genuine
revolution is "never merely to 'change the world,'" but even more essentially, "to
'change time.'" How might we understand this imperative, to change time?
Seeking an answer, Dr. Richard Cohen explores two epochal revolutions in the
cultural experience of time: one centered on the shifting significance of the atman
in India from 1200-700 BCE; the other centered on St. Augustine's theorization of
the soul in late-antique Europe. Through this investigation, Cohen reframes
Agamben's imperative. To change time one must begin to experience the world in
its mystery. The philosophers of ancient India and Augustine alike discerned such
mystery in the eternal and the transcendent.


Richard S. Cohen is an associate professor of South Asian religious literatures at
the University of California, San Diego, and Director of UCSD's Program for the
Study of Religion. He has published two books, Beyond Enlightenment:
Buddhism, Religion, Modernity (Routledge 2006) and The Splendid Vision:
Reading a Buddhist Sutra (Columbia University Press, 2012). This talk is extracted
from his work in progress, This Side of Mystery.