Harvest the Light - Rubens, Tom

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Résumé :
Tom Rubens relates a young man's enlightenment and intellectual growth in 1960-70's England. These are the formative experiences of a fictitious young man, Richard Lane, and his personal philosophical development around modern Western society. Not being from a socially privileged background - Richard is a stranger to a broad education and culture, yet his advancement carries with it exhilaration and challenge, excitement and uncertainty. The mid-late 20th Century time-span and location provides a backdrop to events that sees a widening of educational, social and occupational opportunities - a perfect scenario in which to place Richard's intellectual growth. British society's age-old inequalities and prejudices still endured - and yet the colourful 'Spirit of the Age' permitted the breaking of traditional taboos, allowing an extraordinary society enlightenment - as for many young people in the West at the time. Although primarily set in England, Richard travels through Europe - firstly, Germany while a student, and on to Portugal and Italy as an English Language teacher. This, for the time, novel international dimension encourages Richard's interest in global thought and culture - and places into context the variety of personal development opportunities provided by his home country. Had Richard been born in England into his original social class before the 1930's, he recognises that his intellectual growth would have been severely impaired. He sees that is not alone - foreign travel broadens his view of the similarities to his European counterparts. The Illumination Trilogy's emphasis on the enlargement of knowledge and comprehension inevitably explores not only Richard's general societal and educational experiences, but also his own development of a number of philosophical ideas. As his reading list expands, his intellectual concepts capture his attention most. In relating himself to his complex intellectual inheritance, he applies them to his own personal situation and to the most sensitive, difficult areas of his private life. Richard is left courageously, but also uncertainly, moving in new directions. Nevertheless, he continues to place intense philosophical value on personal relationships - as he has in the past - and to new ones in the future, but we see that his other commitments acquire a real value....

Biographie:
Tom Rubens has had a great many interesting years with The Conway Hall Ethical Society ; he has been a member of the committee, The Editor of the monthly Journal and given many talks at the society's Sunday Morning Lectures. His current long term project for them is a researching and indexing the Humanist Archive since 1870.

Tom has 11 books published - 5 of which were published by the Bristol firm Imprint Academic Book. One in particular includes detailed research for 2 essays about the Wessex born Thomas Hardy who turn atheist in his later life.

During his experimental years 30s, my teaching vocation took me further afield to Nigeria, and to the very edge of the Sahara Desert. There, the huge variety of languages and cultures deepened my thirst for knowledge about the human race as a whole: including knowledge of religious and tribal ways of life. All this was very different from anything I'd experienced in Europe.

While I was travelling I developed an interest in humanists and philosophy. Over many years, I have met and listened to some extraordinary and inspirational speakers on the subject. These meetings have been at lectures and events mainly held at London's Conway Hall and Royal Institute of Philosophy; and, amongst the many speakers have been Anthony Clifford Grayling CBE and Richard Dawkins Oxford's Professor for Public Understanding of Science.

My growing interest within the philosophical sphere has chiefly been voiced in books. The first of these was published in 1984, and has since been followed by seven more publications, as well as journal articles. These broadly reflect the outlook of people such as Grayling and Dawkins: an outlook, which is based on ideas about the nature of reality. My latest endeavours have been to write a trilogy of novels, based in the 1960s and 70s, about young people's experience of growing up, and their perspective in evaluating their newfound knowledge and how they interpret it. The aim of my work is to enable the reader to compare the differences between the time periods and understand better why young people make judgments and opinions today.