Past Programs
History - 2004
Leaving You: A Cultural History of Suicide
21/02/2004
In 1938 historian Lisa Lieberman's grandfather, the son of an Austrian Rabbi, killed himself. It's a mystery that's long haunted her and one which sent her rummaging into the historical archives of self destruction. From Socrates to Sylvia Plath, post-revolutionary France to Auschwitz - suicide has been seen as
both a personal and a political act. But Lieberman provocatively argues that modern medicine has stripped it bare of meaning and reason, and diminished individual responsibility for the decision to die. She joins Natasha Mitchell to share her unease...and historical insights.
