Roman Krznaric on Empathy


  • Venue: Hillside Club
  • Date: November 10, 2014
  • Time: 7:30 pm
  • Price: $15 general/$8 student in advance; $20 at the door (no discounts)

A founding faculty member of London's The School of Life, and Greater Good contributing writer, Roman Krznaric has traveled the world researching and lecturing on the subject of empathy. 

In his new book, Empathy: Why It Matters and How to Get It, Krznaric argues that our brains are wired for social connection and that empathy, not apathy or self-centeredness, is at the heart of who we are. Informed by powerful examples from the worlds of art and design, medicine and humanitarianism, neuroscience, and more, Krznaric presents six habits of highly empathetic people in the book  which anyone can emulate in order to make themselves, and the world, more truly fulfilled.

"Where would humanity be without empathy? Our lives would be disconnected, our societies would fall apart. Growing planetary integration calls for us to pay more attention to this ancient mammalian capacity, and Roman Krznaric is our expert guide to explain how it works and how to fix the deficit that faces humanity today."  -- Frans de Waal, author of The Age of Empathy

Introduced by the GGSC's Jason Marsh. Talk followed by Q&A and book sales. Co-produced by Berkeley Arts & Letters.

Roman Krznaric is a cultural thinker and writer on the art of living. He is a founding faculty member of The School of Life in London, and advises organizations including Oxfam and the United Nations on using empathy and conversation to create social change. He is also founder of the world’s first Empathy Library. 

After growing up in Sydney and Hong Kong, he studied at the universities of Oxford, London and Essex, where he gained his Ph.D. He has taught sociology and politics at Cambridge University and City University, London, and has done human rights work in Central America with refugees and indigenous people. For several years he was Project Director at The Oxford Muse, the avant-garde foundation to stimulate courage and invention in personal, professional and cultural life.

His recent books are The Wonderbox: Curious Histories of How to Live, which explores what we can learn from the past about better living, and How to Find Fulfilling Work, part of a new practical philosophy series edited by Alain de Botton.