What does it mean to love as ever-changing beings in an ever-changing world?

We live in time, and so we love in time. Our beloveds change, and we change beside them. Sometimes we change apart, but it is this very changeableness, the braving of an unknown future together, that endears us to our lovers. Far from an ideal of constancy and commitment, then, love is an endeavor fraught with uncertainty.

In this event, Fannie Bialek and Isabelle Laurenzi will explore a view of love that does not ignore the vagaries of life but embraces them, and a fresh ethics of love grounded by our humility before time. In contrast to philosophical and religious attempts to secure love against finitude, this love embraces its susceptibility to change and accepts the ethical challenges such change introduces. Love here becomes a relationship to uncertainty, instructive for the vulnerabilities or interpersonal relationships and political life.

Fannie Bialek is Professor of Religion and Politics at Washington University in St Louis. Her research and teaching focus on contemporary religious ethics and political theory with an emphasis on feminist thought, Christian theology, and modern forms of power critique. Her first book Love in Time was published in 2025 by the University of Chicago Press.

Isabelle Laurenzi holds a Ph.D. in political theory from Yale University. Her dissertation draws on theories of political consciousness and action, as well as feminist critiques of domination and power.