Professor David Peimer
Roger Federer: What Makes a Hero Today?
Summary
In 2011, Roger Federer was voted number 2 by the Reputation Institute’s study of the world’s most respected, admired and trusted personalities, just behind Nelson Mandela.
Roger Federer seems from another era, a time when ‘heroic’ had a meaning. In this session we will look at Federer and other contemporary heroic figures and ask the question: what makes a hero today? Charisma? Courage in the face of adversity? Or is it as Hemingway put it, “courage is grace under pressure”?
Professor David Peimer
David Peimer is a professor of theatre and performance studies in the UK. He has taught at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and New York University (Global Division), and was a Fulbright Scholar at Columbia University. Born in South Africa, David has won numerous awards for playwriting and directing. He has written eleven plays and directed forty in places like South Africa, New York, Brussels, London, Berlin, Zulu Kingdom, Athens, and more. His writing has been published widely and he is the editor of Armed Response: Plays from South Africa (2009) and the interactive digital book Theatre in the Camps (2012). He is on the board of the Pinter Centre in London.