Hi all,
I guess everyone here knows me at least a little. After seven years in Boston, I'm back in Hyde Park for this year; where I am next year depends on the vagaries of the academic job market. I'm finishing up a Ph.D. in English, and my thesis focuses on the relationship between literature and education reform around the turn of the twentieth century. John Dewey, a pragmatist who comes after James, is sort of my project's presiding spirit. While I've thought and written a lot about Dewey, our group will be my first really sustained engagement with James -- certainly my first attempt to "teach" him. I couldn't imagine a better way to get my feet wet!
As I'll explain a little in this week's thinksheet and introductory "lecture," I think James lends himself particularly well to extra-academic discussion. He resists the disciplinary constraints that make most philosophy unreadable to non-specialists. He is also one of America's finest prose stylists -- second only to Emerson, if you ask me. Aside from the intellectual illumination he offers, I also believe that immersion in James's prose permanently improves one's writing style.
I'm already having a blast doing the reading and preparing my comments. I hope you will too!
- Jesse