Anna Gotlib

Anna Gotlib is a faculty in the Brooklyn College philosophy department and editor of The Moral Psychology of Sadness (Rowman & Littlefield, 2017). The volume celebrates the rich opportunities for intellectual exploration within this complex and overlooked emotion. In this episode, Gotlib shares her reasons for choosing the topic and makes a strong case for allowing space – philosophical as well as social – for sadness, especially in American culture where frank discussions of sadness are generally frowned upon. Sadness can foster self-learning, give one's life fuller meaning and quiet what Buddhists call the chattering monkey mind.