2008

2008-01-03
IN MEMORIAM: Peter H. Hare (1935-2008). Peter Hare died on Wednesday, January 3, 2008. At the time of his death he was SUNY Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at SUNY at Buffalo, where he had taught from 1962 to 2001. Peter was a long-time editor of the journal Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society. He served as president of several philosophical organizations, including the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy, which gave him its highest honour, the Herbert W. Schneider Award. A memorial session devoted to Peter's contributions to the study of American philosophy will be held at the March SAAP meeting at Michigan State University.

2008-01-03
CALL FOR PAPERS: William James Studies is currently considering articles for issue three; the deadline for submissions is March 15, 2008. William James Studies is an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal dedicated to publishing high quality, scholarly articles related to the life, work and influence of William James. The journal is sponsored by the William James Society and published online by the University of Illinois Press. Contacts: Linda Simon (General Editor) and Mark Moller (Managing Editor).

2007

2007-12-01
CALL FOR PAPERS for the Third Annual Atlantic Coast Pragmatist Meeting, April 5-6, 2008, University of North Carolina (Asheville). Discussion topic will be William James, "What Pragmatism Means" in Pragmatism.

2007-10-18
The Harvard University conference "William James and Josiah Royce a Century Later: Pragmatism and Idealism in Dialogue", hosted May 25-27, 2007, can be viewed via RealPlayer webstreaming at the conference web site.

2007-08-22
James Medd has been officially appointed as the Society's Research Specialist. In addition to developing and maintaining the Society's web site, James created and maintains The William James Cybrary.

2007-08-21
SECOND CALL FOR PAPERS: 2007 Charles S. Peirce Society Essay Contest. Awards include a $500 cash prize, presentation at the Society's annual meeting, and possible publication in the Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society.

2007-02-21
The bibliography has moved to its own site -- The William James Cybrary -- which also includes indexed quotations from James's works and letters as well as links to electronic, full-text versions of many of James's published essays and books.

2007-01-26
CALL FOR PAPERS: William James Studies is currently considering articles for its second issue. This issue will celebrate the centennial of the publication of James's Pragmatism, and submissions focusing on this text and its influence are especially welcome. The deadline for submissions is March 1, 2007. William James Studies is an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal dedicated to publishing high quality, scholarly articles related to the life, work and influence of William James. The journal is sponsored by the William James Society and published online by the University of Illinois Press. Contacts: Linda Simon (General Editor) and Mark Moller (Managing Editor).

2007-01-19
IN MEMORIAM: Edward Harry Madden.

2007-01-18
On December 28th Rochester, New York, marked the 100th anniversary of William James' presidential address to the American Philosophical Association, "The Energies of Men", with a full day of events. Seminars on James' address and on his proposal for a non-violent army that would fight the moral equivalent of war were held at St. Paul's New Parish Library, followed by a reader's theater presentation of an original play by Tim Madigan, and a discussion of Madigan's interpretation of James' alleged refutation of William K. Clifford's ethics of belief. During the lunch break, participants looked for squirrels and argued about who had gone around whom. The late afternoon program included a session on nitrous oxide at the University of Rochester Medical School, which got a lot of laughs by reviewing James' accounts of his experiences with the gas. The evening events included talks by Tim Madigan and David White at the Baobab Cultural Center, and ended with a séance at which the spirit of William James made a brief appearance and expressed his personal gratitude for the spirit in which Rochester James Day had been conducted. The Jamesian presence suggested that next year we reserve a block of rooms all off the same corridor in a downtown hotel and adhere even more closely to the inspiration of Giovanni Papini.

2006

2006-12-06
Rochester, NY will mark the 100th anniversary of William James’ presidential address to the American Philosophical Association with a full day of events, free and open to the public.

2006-11-29
An interview with Robert D. Richardson about his book William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism will be published in early December on bookslut.com. The interview was conducted by writer J.C. Hallman, author of the Jamesian influenced book The Devil is a Gentleman: Exploring America's Religious Fringe.

2006-08-30
The New York Times review of Deborah Blum's new book Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life after Death is available online.

2006-07-27
Brazil through the Eyes of William James, Diaries, Letters and Drawings, 1865-1866 (ISBN 0674021339), by Maria Helena Machado (University of Sao Paulo), is scheduled to be published in August 2006 by Harvard University's David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies and Harvard University Press. The book is a critical and bilingual (English-Portuguese) edition of William James's diaries, letters, and drawings from the several months he served as a volunteer on Louis Agassiz's research expedition to Brazil.

2006-07-18
Deborah Blum, Pulitzer Prize winner and professor of science journalism at the University of Wisconsin, has written a book on William James's involvement in psychical research. The book is titled Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life after Death (ISBN 1594200904) and will be published by Penguin Press in August 2006.

2006-07-10
A new intellectual biography of William James is scheduled for publication in November 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company. The book is written by prize-winning biographer Robert D. Richardson and titled William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism (ISBN 0618433252).

2006-07-06
The first issue of William James Studies has been published online by the University of Illinois Press. Featured are essays by Randy Friedman, Amy Kittelstrom, Joel Krueger, and Ruth Anna Putnam. Also included are two addresses delivered at annual meetings of the American Philosophical Association by past presidents of the Society.