Rejuvenation

How old are you? Answering this question is actually not as easy as we think. Because within a certain culture and history, we "age" biologically, psychologically, and socially. Late modernity tells us, people of the 21st century, that in many ways we are older than at any other time in history. We are old, but according to Robert Pogue Harrison, we are also surprisingly getting younger in our appearance, our mentality, and our behavior. We are now in a new era: The era of rejuvenation.

In his book "Rejuvenation", Harrison traces the spirit of youth throughout history. While examining the stopping points and transformations of the idea of "youth" in the thousand-year history of Western culture, from Socrates to Heidegger, from Vico to Darwin, from Sophocles to Rilke, he emphatically emphasizes two fundamental concepts: Genius and Wisdom.

"Genius liberates the novelties that the future holds," says Harrison, "while wisdom renews and transmits the legacies of the past from generation to generation."

Rejuvenation is a fresh and exciting study on how civilizations, societies, cultures, people, and ideas can remain "young."

Robert Pogue Harrison is the Rosina Pierotti Professor of Italian Literature and director of graduate studies in Italian at Stanford University.