Professor Helen Epstein’s Book Why Live Reviewed in the Wall Street Journal
Helen Epstein, visiting professor of human rights and global public health at Bard College.
A new book by Helen Epstein, visiting professor of human rights and global public health at Bard College, has been reviewed in the Wall Street Journal. The book, Why Live: How Suicide Becomes an Epidemic, which Esptein wrote after learning that a family friend had taken their own life, delves into the reasons why people consider suicide and the ways that desire might be mitigated on both a personal and communal level. Epstein examines how, across cultures around the world, suicides sometimes occur in clusters that resemble an epidemic, and “highlights a number of case studies that imply a connection between high rates of suicide and rapid societal changes that disrupt old ways of life,” the Wall Street Journal writes.
The Human Rights Program at Bard is a transdisciplinary program involving such diverse fields as literature, political studies, history, anthropology, economics, film and media, and art history. It emphasizes integrative historical and conceptual investigations, and offers a rigorous background that can inform meaningful practical engagements. The program seeks to orient students in the intellectual tradition of human rights and provide them the resources with which to appreciate and criticize its contemporary status.
Post Date: 09-30-2025
The Human Rights Program at Bard is a transdisciplinary program involving such diverse fields as literature, political studies, history, anthropology, economics, film and media, and art history. It emphasizes integrative historical and conceptual investigations, and offers a rigorous background that can inform meaningful practical engagements. The program seeks to orient students in the intellectual tradition of human rights and provide them the resources with which to appreciate and criticize its contemporary status.
Post Date: 09-30-2025