Speaking the Phenomenon: the 3rd annual University of Sussex graduate conference in phenomenology.

May 24th-25th, 2012

How do the logos and its phenomenon relate? How does the logos itself appear? Is any articulation of the phenomenon possible? We are currently welcoming submissions for the 3rd annual University of Sussex graduate conference in phenomenology. The themes of the last two years have been, respectively, the beginnings and the ends of phenomenology. This year the focus is on an ambiguous relationship at the core of phenomenology: the relationship between its basic parts, phenomenon and logos. We invite abstracts for papers that engage with phenomenology, and its fundamental structure, or engage phenomenologically. What is it to speak of phenomena and what is it, phenomenologically, to speak? We welcome abstracts for papers that criticize phenomenology, and/or engage constructively with it as a philosophical movement. By examining the rapport between phenomenology and its phenomenon we hope to reinvigorate the heart of phenomenology: a speaking of the phenomenon. This conference provides the opportunity for graduate students to present for twenty minutes and receive questions and feedback for an additional twenty minutes each. The University of Sussex graduate conference in Phenomenology is a two-day conference, organized by graduate students for graduate students. It is organized as a single ‘stream’, ensuring that every speaker has the opportunity of addressing all delegates. We aim to bring together postgraduates engaging in original research on phenomenology and related branches of philosophy and to promote contemporary studies in this field.

Keynote speakers: – Professor Miguel de Beistegui (University of Warwick) – Professor Joanna Hodge (Manchester Metropolitan University)

Possible topics include but are not limited to: • The relation between the phenomenon and phenomenology • The operation of logos in phenomenology • The structure of the phenomenal • The compatibility of the phenomenological approach and its manner of articulation • A phenomenological investigation of speaking; what is it to speak? • Phenomenology and hermeneutics • The role of motivation in or for phenomenology; phenomenology’s raison d’être • Phenomenology and the arts • Phenomenology and desire • Phenomenology and psycho-analysis • Phenomenology and science • Phenomenology and Heideggerian ‘Thinking’ • Phenomenology and aesthetics • Phenomenology and speculative materialism (the problem of correlationism) • Phenomenology and archaeology • Phenomenology and realism • Khōra and phenomenology • Phenomenology and testimony

Submissions: Send 300 word abstract and a brief CV to Arthur Willemse (A.Willemse@sussex.ac.uk) no later than the 30th March 2012. Useful information: The conference will be held at the University of Sussex, Brighton, United Kingdom.

Notifications of acceptance will be issued by the 7th of April 2012. Speakers shall be allocated 40 minutes in total: 20 minutes in which to deliver their talk and 20 minutes for Q&A. This format allows graduate students to receive ample feedback on their work. The conference fee is £25 for each accepted speaker. This event is open to the public. For further information concerning travel and accommodation, please contact Arthur (A.Willemse@sussex.ac.uk)

Genealogical research has a passionate following outside of the academic world, a fact that is reflected in the often impressive genealogy collections of public libraries.  Now Villanova faculty members are planning to add genealogical research projects to their undergraduate history syllabi.  Welcome to the digital new world of genealogy: like in so many other areas of research, the time of dusty old books and reels of microfilm has passed and online databases have taken their place.

Ancestry.com and HeritageQuest are two of the major genealogical research tools currently on the market.  Both are available on trial basis until March 15 to Villanova faculty and students.  Discover a wealth of genealogical materials such as U.S. census data (1790-1930), church records, county census data, immigration ship lists, passport applications, Freedman’s Bank records, Revolutionary War pension applications, even international data from the UK, Canada and Germany.

I strongly encourage you to evaluate both resources and send me feedback about their usefulness in the classroom. For more detailed information about the contents of ancestry library edition and HeritageQuest Online, please consult the comparison chart provided by Proquest.  Contact me directly (jutta.seibert@villanova.edu) or post your comments online.

by Afton Woodward

Poet Juan Felipe Herrera will give a reading at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 21, in the Falvey Memorial Library first floor Speakers’ Corner. The reading, which is open to the public, will be followed by a Q&A session.

Herrera is the son of migrant farm workers and was raised in the San Joaquin Valley. He attended UCLA, Stanford and the University of Iowa and has been an activist, teatrista, photographer and poet; he led the first formal Chicano trek to Mexican Indian endangered cultures.

He has published several volumes of poetry, prose, children’s books and young adult novels. Among his honors are two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

His poetry collection Half of the World in Light won the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry and the 2009 PEN/Beyond Margins Award. His collection 187 Reasons Mexicanos Can’t Cross the Border: Undocuments 1971-2007 earned the 2008 PEN West award. He is currently the Tomás Rivera Endowed Chair in Creative Writing at the University of California–Riverside.

Assistant Professor Position

Central European University invites applications for a full-time junior position in the field of ethics. The position will be a joint appointment between the Department of Philosophy (2/3) and the newly founded School of Public Policy and International Affairs (1/3). Candidates must demonstrate excellence and strong commitment to research and teaching.

The candidates’ research should be on some area in ethics. The successful applicant will be expected to teach graduate courses on central issues in ethics and metaethics, as well as courses on some field in applied ethics (for example bioethics, or environmental ethics, or the moral status of animals, etc.). The successful candidate  should be able to develop and contribute to case studies at the School of Public Policy.
Central European University (CEU) is a graduate research-intensive university specializing primarily in the social sciences and humanities. It is located in Budapest, and accredited in the United States and Hungary. CEU’s mission is to promote academic excellence, state-of-the-art research, and civic engagement.  CEU offers MA and PhD programs, and enrolls more than 1500 students from nearly 100 countries. The teaching staff consists of more than 140 resident faculty members from over 40 countries, and a large number of prominent visiting scholars from around the world. The language of instruction is English.

Duties and responsibilities:

Teaching graduate courses in ethics and applied ethics, and supervising MA and PhD theses in ethics, and normal administrative work at both departments and the University. The yearly teaching load is 12 credits (1 credit equals 12 classroom hours). The successful candidates will be expected to maintain an active research agenda and regularly publish in major professional journals.

Qualifications:

PhD by the time of starting employment.

Compensation:

An internationally competitive salary is offered commensurate with experience.

How to Apply:
Applications should include a cover letter, a statement of research plans, a CV, a list of publications, a writing sample, and the names and contact details of at least three referees.
Please send your complete application to positions@ceu.hu  including job code in subject line: 2012/010.

CEU is an equal opportunity employer.

Here are some new books and suggestions for further reading to help commemorate Black History Month.

Malcolm X : a life of reinvention / by Manning Marable  (Penguin 2012)

Choice Reviews excerpt: “Columbia University professor Marable died shortly before the publication of his marvelous biography of Malcolm X. Since Malcolm’s assassination in 1965 by followers of Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam, Malcolm has been best known through his autobiography (written with Alex Haley), published shortly after his death. Nearly a half-century later, Marable has written a compelling reinterpretation of Malcolm’s life, answering questions raised by the autobiography. … Malcolm was one of a handful of the most important African Americans in the 20th century, and perhaps the least understood. This book is unrivaled among interpretations of a complicated man and his monumental impact.” Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.

Publisher’s Weekly excerpt: “Marable deftly follows the same narrative path as did Haley’s autobiography, but filling in the gaps and fine-tuning the exaggerations of that best-selling volume. Combing through FBI and NYPD files, gathering Nation of Islam interviews, and fleshing out Malcolm’s post-NOI activities abroad, Marable succeeds spectacularly in painting a broader and more complex portrait of a man constantly in search of himself and his place in America. © Copyright PW, LLC. All rights reserved.

To find more biographies about Black American civil rights workers, search African American civil rights workers – Biography

Advancing the ball : race, reformation, and the quest for equal coaching opportunity in the NFL by N. Jeremi Duru  (Oxford UP 2011)

Choice Reviews excerpt : “That one of the two 2011 Super Bowl teams was led by an African American head coach seemed unremarkable. But as Duru (Law, Temple Univ.) points out, it was remarkable–and a recent development in professional football. Duru tells the story of a handful of lawyers, activists, and former NFL insiders who challenged hiring practices in the NFL, an “old boy” white power structure that treated African American players as commodities but denied African Americans leadership positions. In 2003 the NFL adopted the Rooney Rule, which requires teams to interview minority candidates when hiring head coaches. The rule traces back to activist Cleveland Browns player John Wooten, who joined civil rights attorneys in mobilizing NFL African American assistant coaches to call attention to NLF racial discrimination.” Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.

For more books on race relations in sports, search Discrimination in Sports – United States- History

Click National Football League for more books on professional football.

The indignant generation : a narrative history of African American writers and critics, 1934-1960 by Lawrence P. Jackson (Princeton UP 2011)

Choice Reviews excerpt : “The title of this ambitious study comes from Ralph Ellison’s praise of Richard Wright’s character Bigger Thomas in Native Son. An “indignant consciousness” led many mid-20th-century black writers and intellectuals to try to transform “their indignation at Jim Crow to manufacture … strata of artworks that secured and pronounced a new era of psychological freedom for African Americans.” …The author organizes the study chronologically–1934 is when Richard Wright first became noticed and 1960 marks the rise of more strident writers–and takes the reader mainly to Washington, DC, New York, and Chicago. Rich with photos and well written, the book merits praise for the deserved attention it brings to the rise of African American criticism and intellectualism and to the many important people who figured in the rise of better-known novelists.” Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.

Publisher’s Weekly excerpt: “Jackson’s book is news: he connects the writers (the common focus of literary history) to publishers, editors, periodicals, organizations; he links African-American writers to the “significant African American intellectual class teaching at black colleges.” A near census of black writers and thinkers, Jackson’s integrated account of a segregated world places white figures (e.g., Bucklin Moon, Lillian Smith, Norman Mailer, Jack Kerouac) on the map as well.” (c) Copyright PW, LLC. All rights reserved.

For further reading on this topic, search African Americans – Intellectual life – 20th century

The APA committee on Lectures, Publications, and Research invites nominations
for the Joseph B. Gittler Award (Next deadline: March 15, 2012)
This prize is awarded for “an outstanding scholarly contribution in the field of
the philosophy of one or more of the social sciences.” The range of the social
sciences will be construed broadly so as to include anthropology, economics,
education, government, history, psychology, sociology, and any other field that
is normally located within the social science division in contemporary colleges
and universities.

Background
This prize was established in 2007 with funds donated by the estate of Joseph B.
Gittler.

Eligibility
A contribution may be a book, a single article, or a connected set of articles.
All nominated contributions must have been published within five years before
the deadline. Nominated contributions may be co-authored, but a single
individual must be designated as the proposed recipient of the award.
Contributions will be limited to three articles or books per nominee. At least
one of the submissions should be single authored. The nominated author must be a
member in good standing of the APA.

Nominations
Each nomination must be made by an APA member other than the author. Each member
may submit only one nomination. Nominations should include complete publication
information and may include a statement in support of the nomination. The APA
will contact nominated authors to confirm willingness to be considered and to
secure copies of the nominated contributions and the author’s CV. Nominations
must be submitted by email on or before the deadline of March 15, 2012. Email
nominations to: Linda Nuoffer at lnuoffer@udel.edu.

Selection
A committee appointed by the Chair of the Committee on Lectures, Publications,
and Research, in consultation with LPR committee members, will consider
submissions and select a winner.

Frequency:
Annually

Amount:
$4,000. The winner will be presented with the award at the Eastern Division
meeting of the Association.

Read Jutta Seibert’s blog on library catalog features. It includes …

• Searching the Library Catalog will retrieve journal articles, book reviews and dissertations besides the traditional catalog fare of books
• Library catalog book records with the Google Preview icon enable you to read excerpts of books and also retrieve more books with key word searches
• Find new books and movies in the library’s collection
• Set up annotated reading or movie lists in the catalog and share them with students and colleagues
• Use the Text this icon to text records and call numbers to yourself or others.  Cite this will generate instant citations in MLA and APA styles.

The Historical Periodicals Collection of the American Antiquarian Society (AAS) is currently available on trial basis.  Described as “the most comprehensive collection of American periodicals published between 1691 and 1877,” the collection includes more than 7,600 magazines and journals with more than seven million digitized pages. The digitization of series 5 which extends coverage up to 1877 has just been completed.

Series 1: 1691-1820
Series 2: 1821-1837
Series 3: 1838-1852
Series 4: 1853-1865
Series 5: 1866-1877
Series 1-5: 1691-1877

Don’t miss the twelve collection overview essays which can be found on the lower right hand corner of the results screen via the Reference Shelf link.  The essays discuss the research value of the AAS periodicals collection. Included are titles such as Doing Women’s History at the American Antiquarian Society and An Overview of the American Antiquarian Society Periodicals Collection. The essay on the periodical literature in the Revolutionary War Era includes detailed descriptions of selected periodicals.

The Publications link at the top of the search screen brings up a complete title list with publication start and end dates. Search results can be limited by types of publication, document and image. The collection is available on the familiar EBSCO platform.

The trial will run until April 2.  Give the AAS Historical Periodicals Collection a try and let me know what you think.  Your feedback is important.  Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments that you may have.

Today marks the 200th anniversary of Charles Dickens’s birth.

In honor of the day, I’d like to highlight our small Dickensian collection in the Digital Library. Included are the first volume of an 1879 illustrated omnibus edition of Dickens’s works, a late-19th century collection of Dickensian character illustrations by “Kyd”, an 1865 letter from Charles Dickens, and an 1890 letter from Charles Dickens, Jr.

Dick Swiveller from The Old Curiosity Shop,
The characters of Charles Dickens, p. 15.

You can easily find a lot more information about Charles Dickens by searching the web. Here are just a few of the interesting things I found.

Dickens 2012 has information on the celebrations and exhibitions going on around the world.

The Morgan Library has a “Charles Dickens at 200” exhibit, which you can see part of online. The online exhibit includes the manuscript copy of A Christmas Carol as well as a selection of letters.

“Dickens in Context”, from the British Library, offers resources for understanding the themes of Dickens’s works. It also includes video discussions and complementary manuscripts, newspapers, and other items to “help students open up the social, cultural and political context in which Dickens was writing.”

If you have an iPhone or iPad, check out “Dickens Dark London” for a glimpse of London through Dickens’s eyes. This app is “an interactive graphic novel conducted by the Museum of London based on Sketches by Boz.” Text with audio and shadowy illustrations set the scene, while a map of London lets you see how the streets have changed between 1862 and now. The first issue is free; subsequent issues will be available each month for a small fee.

Faithfully yours, Charles Dickens

By Alice Bampton

To publicize the 2011-2012 One Book Villanova Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet events, Falvey graphic designer Joanne Quinn filled the first-floor cultural window with paper parasols, Japanese lanterns, books, Bitter and Sweet street signs and a slide show of historic photographs.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is “a work of fiction” although “many of the events … did occur as described,” according to author Jamie Ford.

The novel deals with past and present as seen through the eyes of Henry Lee, a Chinese-American. During World War II, Lee was twelve years old when his close Japanese-American friend, Keiko, the only other Asian in their school, was among those relocated to internment camps.

In addition to a collection of library books that deal with the World War II Japanese American incarceration, a digital picture frame with a fascinating slide show of black and white photographs illustrates events of the period. The books are available for interested readers.

The street signs represent the fictional but appropriate address of the Panama Hotel, a real Seattle hotel located on South Main Street.

Large paper parasols on the left and right sides of the window refer visually to a passage at the beginning of the novel in which the Panama Hotel’s new owner discovers possessions, long stored in the basement, belonging to the Japanese-American families who were taken from Seattle to  internment camps.

A large placard explains the One Book Villanova concept and provides a brief synopsis of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet. Joe Lucia, University librarian; Terry Nance, PhD, assistant vice president for Multicultural Affairs; and Thomas Mogan, director of the Office of Student Development, are the 2011-2012 co-chairs of the One Book Villanova committee.

One Book Villanova began in the 2005-2006 academic year as the result of a conversation between Lucia and Dr. Nance. They believed that “books and ideas matter” and that a “one book” program would provide students with opportunities for discussion “about the pressing issues and questions of our time.” Others joined them in the development of the program. Previous One Book Villanova selections have been The Unforgiving Minute by Craig Mullaney, Rooftops of Tehran by Mehbod Seraji, The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, Left to Tell by Imaculée Illbagiza, Blood Done Sign My Name by Timothy Tyson and The Kite Runner by Kahled Hosseini.

Photo by Alice Bampton

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