Forums, Reading Groups, and Special Seminars
Special Seminars
- National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar for College and University Teachers:
Pragmatism: A Living Tradition
University of New Mexico, Albuquerque
June 17 — July 20th, 2007
Russell B. Goodman, Project Director: Email for Program
Visiting Faculty: Maria Baghramian (University College, Dublin), William Blattner (Georgetown), Charles Guignon (South Florida), Cheryl Misak (Toronto)
The purpose of this seminar, one hundred years after William James published Pragmatism, is to examine pragmatism as a living tradition — to assess its original appeal, and to understand why it continues to find powerful proponents (and powerful critics) today. Each of the seminar's five weeks will have a distinct focus: the development of James's pragmatism, Peirce and "the new pragmatism," pragmatism and pluralism, pragmatism and other philosophical traditions, and the philosophy of Richard Rorty. The seminar will be collaborative in spirit and will take some of its specific directions from the participants. There will be three main sessions each week. The project director will conduct the sessions in the first week and the first session of subsequent weeks, with the seminar's visitors leading two sessions each in weeks 2 through 5. Ample time will be set aside for writing or teaching projects the participants bring to the seminar, for other more specialized discussions as desired by the participants, and for travel in the high desert of New Mexico. A more detailed description is available here.
