Cavell, Stanley. Little Did I Know: Excerpts from Memory. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2010.
In God, Philosophy, Universities: A Selective History of the Catholic Philosophical Tradition, the latest in a number of recent books critical of the modern research university, the influential Irish-born philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre argues that "neither the university nor philosophy is any longer seen as engaging the questions" of "plain persons." These questions include: "What is our place in the order of things? Of what powers in the natural and social world do we need to take account? How should we respond to the facts of suffering and death? What is our relationship to the dead? What is it to live a human life well? What is it to live it badly?" Now in his 80s, MacIntyre is among a small group of philosophers who have sought to address such questions. Other members, about the same age, include the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor and, perhaps especially, the American philosopher Stanley Cavell, whose life both in and out of philosophy is on display in his just-published autobiography, Little Did I Know (Stanford University Press).
In his book, MacIntyre indicts the university for its lack of integration, the disconnections among the disciplines, and the intellectual disregard of one discipline for another. He writes: "In contemporary American universities, each academic discipline is treated as autonomous and self-defining, so that its practitioners, or at least the most prestigious and influential among them, prescribe to those entering the discipline what its scope and limits are. And in order to excel in any one particular discipline, one need in general know little or nothing about any of the others." Returning philosophy to the concern of ordinary human persons and showing how it might speak across disciplinary lines of inquiry are not easy tasks. But the life and career of Cavell testify not just to the possibility of such achievements but also to just how rich the results can be. . . .
Read the rest here: http://chronicle.com/article/Stanley-Cavells-Philosophical/124830/.
Showing posts with label History: Twentieth Century: Analytic Philosophy: Cavell. Show all posts
Showing posts with label History: Twentieth Century: Analytic Philosophy: Cavell. Show all posts
Thursday, December 02, 2010
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Gould, Tim. Review of Lawrence Rhu, STANLEY CAVELL'S AMERICAN DREAM. OLP & LITERARY STUDIES ONLINE. August 19, 2010.
Rhu, Lawrence. Stanley Cavell’s American Dream: Shakespeare, Philosophy, and Hollywood Movies. New York: Fordham UP, 2006.
Lawrence Rhu’s Stanley Cavell’s American Dream is one of the most interesting books on Cavell’s work to be published in the last decade. Rhu’s book examines what he calls the “convergence and elaboration” of three “major subjects in the philosophy of Stanley Cavell” (1): Shakespeare (especially the Romances and the “Roman” plays), Emerson, and Hollywood movies (in particular the comedies and the melodramas that Cavell comes to focus on). Rhu’s intention is to reveal something significant about Cavell’s work through the fact and content of this convergence. But he is also attempting to use this convergence to make Cavell’s thought more accessible to a wider audience. He characterizes this potentially wider audience as those that would not normally find themselves involved in “the writings of professional philosophers” (1).
Rhu is a Renaissance scholar who aims to reshape the preoccupations of his field. Where others have been content to borrow Cavell’s insights about a particular field of study (for instance Shakespeare, film, the American Renaissance, or the nature of political community), Rhu explicitly wants the convergence of the fields to illuminate the core of Cavell’s work. He wants to examine this core as the goal of the convergence of these topics. He is certainly well aware that the historical direction of Cavell’s explorations is more explicitly outward, beginning with issues like skepticism and perfectionism. In Rhu’s argument, the outward movement of Cavell’s work implies the possibility of inward and convergent paths. He suggests that the very possibility of this convergence provides a wider access to Cavell’s work and even a kind of argument in favor of Cavell’s insights. He thus wants more than abstract structural analogies, such as the ones sketched in by Stephen Mulhall. He wants something of substance and content to provide the center towards which these fields converge. Herein lies the problem and the promise of this challenging book.
Rhu does not try to name the territory towards which the three areas of Cavell’s thought are tending. Indeed, there is a kind of provisional, Emersonian quality to any such effort to point to the heart of the matter of Cavell’s project. He does, however, make various efforts at characterizing this central ground. . . .
Read the rest here: http://olponline.wordpress.com/2010/08/19/tim-gould-reviews-lawrence-rhus-stanley-cavells-american-dream-previously-unpublished/.
Lawrence Rhu’s Stanley Cavell’s American Dream is one of the most interesting books on Cavell’s work to be published in the last decade. Rhu’s book examines what he calls the “convergence and elaboration” of three “major subjects in the philosophy of Stanley Cavell” (1): Shakespeare (especially the Romances and the “Roman” plays), Emerson, and Hollywood movies (in particular the comedies and the melodramas that Cavell comes to focus on). Rhu’s intention is to reveal something significant about Cavell’s work through the fact and content of this convergence. But he is also attempting to use this convergence to make Cavell’s thought more accessible to a wider audience. He characterizes this potentially wider audience as those that would not normally find themselves involved in “the writings of professional philosophers” (1).
Rhu is a Renaissance scholar who aims to reshape the preoccupations of his field. Where others have been content to borrow Cavell’s insights about a particular field of study (for instance Shakespeare, film, the American Renaissance, or the nature of political community), Rhu explicitly wants the convergence of the fields to illuminate the core of Cavell’s work. He wants to examine this core as the goal of the convergence of these topics. He is certainly well aware that the historical direction of Cavell’s explorations is more explicitly outward, beginning with issues like skepticism and perfectionism. In Rhu’s argument, the outward movement of Cavell’s work implies the possibility of inward and convergent paths. He suggests that the very possibility of this convergence provides a wider access to Cavell’s work and even a kind of argument in favor of Cavell’s insights. He thus wants more than abstract structural analogies, such as the ones sketched in by Stephen Mulhall. He wants something of substance and content to provide the center towards which these fields converge. Herein lies the problem and the promise of this challenging book.
Rhu does not try to name the territory towards which the three areas of Cavell’s thought are tending. Indeed, there is a kind of provisional, Emersonian quality to any such effort to point to the heart of the matter of Cavell’s project. He does, however, make various efforts at characterizing this central ground. . . .
Read the rest here: http://olponline.wordpress.com/2010/08/19/tim-gould-reviews-lawrence-rhus-stanley-cavells-american-dream-previously-unpublished/.
Friday, July 16, 2010
"Stanley Cavell and Literary Studies," Humanities Center, Harvard University, October 14-16, 2010.
Bernie Rhie writes:
As some of you know, Richard Eldridge and I are coediting a collection of newly commissioned essays — entitled Stanley Cavell and Literary Studies: Consequences of Skepticism — which will explore the relevance of Cavell’s writings for literary theorists and critics (to be published in 2011 by Continuum). Over the past few months, we’ve been organizing a 3-day conference related to this volume, which will take place at Harvard’s Humanities Center, October 14-16, 2010.
The primary focus of the conference will be the presentation and discussion of draft versions of the commissioned chapters for the volume. But it will begin, the evening of October 14th, with a celebration of the publication of Cavell’s forthcoming philosophical autobiography, Little Did I Know: Excerpts from Memory (Stanford Univ. Press, forthcoming in October). Following an introduction by the Center’s director, Homi Bhabha . . . there will be brief responses to selected passages from Cavell’s memoir, presented by five distinguished philosophers who have close, and long-standing ties, to Prof. Cavell:
•Norton Batkin (Bard College)
•James Conant (University of Chicago)
•Arnold Davidson (University of Chicago and University of Pisa)
•Paul Franks (University of Toronto)
•Sandra Laugier (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)
After their brief presentations, there will be a discussion and Q&A session (open to members of the audience) moderated by Nancy Bauer (Tufts University). Prof. Cavell will attend the Oct. 14 event (as well as the rest of the conference), and plans to be available to sign copies of his memoir after the evening’s discussion comes to a close.
The next two days of the conference — Friday Oct. 15 and Saturday Oct. 16 — will consist of presentations of the commissioned chapters (grouped into panels of two or three papers at a time), each set of papers to be followed by some comments and/or questions from an invited respondent. We will be sure to allot substantial time for discussion of each set of papers. . . .
See the schedule at the conference website here: http://olponline.wordpress.com/2010/05/16/october-14-16-conference-at-harvard-on-cavell-literary-studies/.
As some of you know, Richard Eldridge and I are coediting a collection of newly commissioned essays — entitled Stanley Cavell and Literary Studies: Consequences of Skepticism — which will explore the relevance of Cavell’s writings for literary theorists and critics (to be published in 2011 by Continuum). Over the past few months, we’ve been organizing a 3-day conference related to this volume, which will take place at Harvard’s Humanities Center, October 14-16, 2010.
The primary focus of the conference will be the presentation and discussion of draft versions of the commissioned chapters for the volume. But it will begin, the evening of October 14th, with a celebration of the publication of Cavell’s forthcoming philosophical autobiography, Little Did I Know: Excerpts from Memory (Stanford Univ. Press, forthcoming in October). Following an introduction by the Center’s director, Homi Bhabha . . . there will be brief responses to selected passages from Cavell’s memoir, presented by five distinguished philosophers who have close, and long-standing ties, to Prof. Cavell:
•Norton Batkin (Bard College)
•James Conant (University of Chicago)
•Arnold Davidson (University of Chicago and University of Pisa)
•Paul Franks (University of Toronto)
•Sandra Laugier (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)
After their brief presentations, there will be a discussion and Q&A session (open to members of the audience) moderated by Nancy Bauer (Tufts University). Prof. Cavell will attend the Oct. 14 event (as well as the rest of the conference), and plans to be available to sign copies of his memoir after the evening’s discussion comes to a close.
The next two days of the conference — Friday Oct. 15 and Saturday Oct. 16 — will consist of presentations of the commissioned chapters (grouped into panels of two or three papers at a time), each set of papers to be followed by some comments and/or questions from an invited respondent. We will be sure to allot substantial time for discussion of each set of papers. . . .
See the schedule at the conference website here: http://olponline.wordpress.com/2010/05/16/october-14-16-conference-at-harvard-on-cavell-literary-studies/.
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