The Human Predicament

was a 7-issue mini-series set in the DC Universe written by Ben Raab and published by DC Comics from May to September, 2005. The story centers around a teenager named Ulysses Adams who wakes up on the morning of his high school graduation to find himself in the Kafka-esque predicament of having been transformed by an alien virus into something not quite human. It turns out Ulysses is the central figure in a centuries-old prophecy about the extinction of all humanity and a pawn that the forces of good and evil are fighting to control.

A thought-provoking contribution to the renaissance of interest in Bergson, this study brings him to a new generation of readers.

"All life upon the stage"; the Theatrum Mundi. In this volume, a seventeenth century metaphor is revisited and is seen as applying to all art in all times. In the "magic mirror of art" the human being discerns the hidden spheres of human life and commemorates and celebrates its glorious victories and mourns its ignominious defeats. Let us rediscover Art as a witness to the human predicament as well as a celebrant of humanity's most sublime moments.

In humanity’s more than 100,000 year history, we have evolved from vulnerable creatures clawing sustenance from Earth to a sophisticated global society manipulating every inch of it. In short, we have become the dominant animal. Why, then, are we creating a world that threatens our own species? What can we do to change the current trajectory toward more climate change, increased famine, and epidemic disease?

This timely volume examines the conflict between human individual life and larger forces that are not controllable. Drawing on recent literature in phenomenological and existential psychology it calls for a more nuanced understanding of the human predicament. Focusing on the co-occurring crises of climate change and the COVID-19 epidemic, it explores the nature of widespread anxiety and the long-term human consequences. It calls for an expansion of current research that would include the arts and humanities for critical insights into how this essential conflict between humanity and nature may be reconciled.

If we are material beings living in a material world–and all the scientific evidence suggests that we are–then we must find existential meaning, if there is such a thing, in this physical world. We must cast our lot with the natural rather than the supernatural.