Upcoming Events
Annual Meeting
The William James Society will hold its 2006 Annual Meeting at the APhilA Eastern Division Meeting, December 28, 2006 from 2pm to 5pm in the Carolina South Room at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel, Washington, DC. Chair: John Lachs (Vanderbilt).
• Presidential Panel: William James and Literature.
• Patrick Dooley (St. Bonaventure University), "William James's 'Specious Present' and Willa Cather's Phenomenology of Memory."
• Joan Richardson (CUNY Graduate Center), "William James's Feeling 'Of If.'"
• Peter Hare (SUNY Buffalo), "William James, Literary Imagination, and Epistemology."
• Business Meeting: Micah Hester (UAMS), Secretary-Treasurer, WJS.
Conferences, Symposia and Panels
SAAP, Columbia, SC, March 8-10, 2007.
• Panel topic: "William James - Influences, Ancestors, and Applications."
• Paul Croce (Stetson), "From Swedenborgian Philosophy of Use to William James's Pragmatism."
• Tadd Ruetenik (Penn), "War-Hawking and Other Addictions: Social Criticism in Henry and William James."
• Robert Richardson, "Pragmatism and Darwin."
APhilA Pacific Division, San Francisco, April 3-8, 2007. Chair: Brendan Hogan (Pacific Lutheran).
• Heidi White (NYU), "Pragmatism and Our Relations with Others."
• Lee McBride (College of Wooster), "The Dynamic Belt of Quivering Uncertainty: Individual Differences."
• Kevin S. Decker (Eastern Washington University), "Between Bare Brute Events and Transparent Meaning: Dewey and James on Recognition."
• Commentator: Terrance MacMullan (Eastern Washington University).
APhilA Central Division, Chicago, April 18-21, 2007. Topic: Revisiting 'The Will to Believe'. Chair: Robert Talisse (Vanderbilt).
• Guy Axtell (UN-Reno), "Jamesian Pluralism, Reconsidered."
• Scott Aikin (Vanderbilt), "Evidentialism and James's Argument from Friendship."
• James Bednar (UA-Hunstville), "Waiting Till Doomsday."
• Commentator: Cheryl Misak (U of Toronto)
Conference: "William James and Josiah Royce a Century Later: Pragmatism and Idealism in Dialogue". Hosted by Harvard Divinity School in conjunction with the Josiah Royce Society, the William James Society, and the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy. May 25-27, 2007 at the Lowell Lecture Hall, Harvard University. Speakers to include John Clendenning, Harvey Cormier, Hans Joas, Jacquelyn Kegley, James Kloppenberg, David Lamberth, John Lachs, John J. McDermott, Frank Oppenheim, Hilary Putnam, Robert Richardson, Sandra Rosenthal, Linda Simon, Ignas Skrupskelis, and Cornel West.
Past Events
Annual Meetings
The William James Society held its 2005 Annual Meeting at the APhilA Eastern Division Meeting, New York, December 29, 2005.
• Presidential Address by William Gavin, "Problem vs. Trouble: James, Kafka, Dostoevsky, and 'The Will to Believe.'"
• Panel topic: "Charlene Seigfried's William James's Radical Reconstruction of Philosophy, Fifteen Years Later."
• Speakers: John Capps, Megan Mustain, David Perley, Richard Shusterman, Charlene Seigfried.
The William James Society held its 2004 Annual Meeting at the APhilA Eastern Division Meeting, Boston, December 30, 2004.
• Panel topic : "Harry Heft's Ecological Psychology in Context." Moderator: Mark Moller (Denison University).
• Commentators: Tom Burke (University of South Carolina), Jack Sanders (Rochester Institute of Technology), Barry Smith (University of Buffalo).
• Respondent: Harry Heft (Denison University).
The William James Society held its 2003 Annual Meeting at the APhilA Eastern Division Meeting, Washington, DC, December 28, 2003.
• Presidential Address by Linda Simon (Skidmore College).
• Panel topic: "Conceptualizing William James: The Interface of Biography and the Scholarship of Ideas." Chair: Robert Talisse (Vanderbilt University).
• Harvey Cormier (State University of New York - Stony Brook), "Philosophy in the Life of James."
• John Danisi (Wagner College), "Psychology in the Life of James."
• John Roth (Claremont McKenna College), "Religion in the Life of James."
The William James Society held its 2002 Annual Meeting at the APhilA Eastern Division Meeting, Philadelphia, December 29, 2002.
• Presidential Address by John J. McDermott (Texas A&M University).
• Meeting theme: "James's Melorism: Escape from Tragedy."
• Speakers: Dwight Goodyear (New School University), Henry Jackman (York University).
• Respondant: Richard Gale (University of Pittsburgh).
The William James Society held its 2001 Annual Meeting at the APhilA Eastern Division Meeting, Atlanta, December 28, 2001.
• Meeting theme: "Fronting Life in the 21st Century: James in the New Century."
• Phil Oliver, "James and the Return to Life."
• Robert Talisse, "The Need for a Moral Equivalent of War."
• William Gavin, "Vagueness, Death and Dying in the New Millennium."
Conferences, Symposia and Panels
APhilA Central Division, Chicago, April 26-29, 2006. Topic: "William James's Philosophy of Religion." Chair: David Vessey (University of Chicago).
• S. Nassir Ghaemi (Emory University), "William James and the Psychology of Religious Experience."
• Jacob Lynn Goodson (University of Virginia), "William James on the Doctrine of Transubstantiation."
• Roger Ward (Georgetown College), "Jamesean Conversion."
• Commentator: Elizabeth Cooke (Creighton University).
APhilA Pacific Division, Portland, OR, March 22-26, 2006. Topic: "William James's Ethics." Chair: Mark Moller (Denison University).
• Wesley Cooper (University of Alberta), "Cerebralism and Voluntarism in James's Will-to-Believe Doctrine."
• Henry Jackman (York University), "James, Objectivity, and Ethical Truth."
• Todd Lekan (Muskingum College), "Strenuous Moral Living."
The William James Society held two symposia organized by John Snarey at the APA Annual Convention, Chicago, August 2002.
• Division 26, History of Psychology. Topic: "Historical Perspectives on William James's The Varieties of Religious Experience." Participants: Hendrika Vande Kemp, John Snarey, Marcia Ian, Lynn Bridgers, Richard L. Gorsuch, J. Ryan Snyder.
• Division 36, Psychology of Religion. Topic: "Contemporary Readings of William James's The Varieties of Religious Experience." Participants: Eugene Taylor, William Douglas Woody, Janet C. de Baca, William R. Miller, Mark Krejci, Robert Emmons, E. Mark Stern.
The William James Society sponsored a panel at the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy, Portland, ME, March 2002. Topic: "William James's Varieties: Emotions as/in Religious Experience." Chair: William Gavin.
• Phil Oliver, "Varieties of Emotional Experience: James's Radical Turn."
• Lynn Bridgers, "Embodied Emotion: The Centrality of Caritas in William James's Varieties."
• Respondent: David C. Lamberth.